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THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 


THE 

Adolescent  Girl 

A   STUDY   FROM   THE 

PSYCHOANALYTIC    VIEWPOINT 

BY 

PHYLLIS  BLANCHARD,  Ph.D. 

AtJTHOB   OP   "PSTCHOAMALYTIC   STUDY   OF   AUOUSTB  COMTE" 

WITH    A   PREFACE   BY 

Dr.  G.  STANLEY  HALL 


NEW  YORK 
MOFFAT,  YARD  AND  COMPANY 

1920 

■  "7  7  /  >- 


Copyright,  1920, 

BY 

MOFFAT,  YARD  AND  (X)MPANY 


846 


7         Dr.  Blanchard,  the  author  of  this  book,  was 
able  under  unusually  favorable  conditions  to 
utilize   some  of  the  fundamental  concepts   of 
-psychoanalysis  in  solving  her  own  adolescent 
problems,  and  has  since  read  widely  in  this  field 
and  had  interesting  and  profitable  experiences 
i^        in  helping  other  young  women  through  the  per- 
turbations of  post-pubertal  years.    During  the 
^         period  of  my  association  with  her,  for  the  last 
^         three  years,  she  has  been  no  less  but  probably 
'j         more  interested  in  the  philosophical  implica- 
r)         tions  of  the  work  inaugurated  by  the  Freudian 
school,  and  has  been  much  impressed  by  Adler 
and  still  more  by  the  contributions  of  Jung. 
Her  life,  too,  has  brought  her  into  more  or  less 
contact  with  many  young  women,  some  of  whom 
have  been  and  all  of  whom  she  believes  could 
be  much  helped  in  the  development  of  sound 
views  of  life  by  wise  and  careful  use  of  the  new 
sources  of  light  upon  the  unconscious  factors  in 


vi  PREFACE 

the  soul  in  its  last  psychical  stage  of  develop- 
ment. 

To  my  own  mind  the  psyche  of  the  budding 
girl  has  seemed  about  the  very  most  unknown 
of  all  the  great  domains  of  psychology.  We  do 
know  something,  which  many  years  ago  I  tried 
to  summarize,  about  this  crisis  in  a  boy's  life, 
but  the  corresponding  changes  in  the  soul  of 
the  young  woman  are  far  more  hidden  not  only 
to  herself  but  to  others.  Culture  history  studies 
of  hysterical  phenomena  in  the  wide  sense  of 
Pierre  Janet  have  shown  the  important  role  that 
these  unbalanced  souls  have  played  in  history 
from  the  days  of  the  pythoness  at  Delphi  and 
the  sibyls  down  to  the  Fox  sisters,  who  gave  the 
chief  momentum  to  spiritism  in  this  country, 
and  the  Creery  girls,  whose  performances  were 
the  chief  theme  of  investigation  in  the  early 
years  of  the  English  Psychic  Research  Society. 
Many  men  of  eminence  have  been  led  far  astray 
from  the  path  of  scientific  sobriety  by  adoles- 
cent girls,  while  the  ''Backfisch"  or  "tendron" 
seems  to  represent  perhaps  the  most  general- 
ized type  of  the  human  psyche  in  the  world. 

The  time  has  now  come  in  the  feminist  move- 


PREFACE  vii 

ment  when  women  should  frankly  recognize 
the  sex  differences  in  body  and  mind  which 
they  have  hitherto  so  strangely  persisted  in 
ignoring.  Women  are  more  conservative  in 
body  and  mind,  somewhat  more  generalized, 
nearer  the  race,  understand  other  women  better 
than  men  understand  other  men,  mature  earlier, 
are  more  intuitive,  etc.  They  differ  widely, 
too,  in  their  crimes,  in  their  liabilities  to 
disease,  their  school  interests,  their  outlook 
upon  society  and  the  world.  Indeed  during  the 
feminist  movement  of  the  last  generation  it 
almost  seems  as  if  the  normal  influence  of 
woman  as  such  upon  the  course  of  events  and 
the  lives  of  men  had,  to  say  the  least,  not  in- 
creased. 

I  should  like  especially  to  commend  this 
study  to  the  careful  attention  of  all  women  in- 
terested in  the  true  status  of  their  sex  in  the 
world.  It  is  probably  far  harder  for  women  to 
achieve  true  self-knowledge  than  for  man  to 
do  so.  She  is  more  prone  either  to  over-  or 
underestimate  herself  or  to  take  flight  from 
reality  and  to  misconceive  what  she  really 
wants.    It   is   because    a    true   knowledge    of 


viii  PREFACE 

woman,  as  of  man,  must  begin  if  it  does  not  end 
in  the  study  of  the  teens,  when  nature  is  trying 
to  add  a  new  and  higher  story  to  our  being, 
that  I  am  glad  of  an  opportunity  to  very  heart- 
ily commend  this  book  to  the  attention  of  all 
who  at  this  crisis  in  her  history,  when  woman 
has  so  suddenly  attained  so  much,  are  now  ask- 
ing what  is  the  next  step. 

G.  Stanley  Hall. 

Clark  University, 
January  1,  1920. 


FOREWORD 

The  changes  in  social  customs  and  institution .^ 
which  have  come  about  as  a  result  of  the  up- 
heaval created  by  the  World  War  have  brought 
to  woman  new  duties  and  grave  responsibilities 
It  is  for  the  wise  and  efficient  carrying  out  of 
these  that  the  adolescent  girl  must  prepare  her- 
self, for  no  sudden  inspiration  can  be  trusted  to 
guide  her  when  they  fall  to  her  lot;  she  must 
have  a  firm,  sure  knowledge  of  herself  and  of 
her  place  within  the  cosmic  order  if  she  is  to  use 
aright  the  power  which  is  being  placed  in  her 
hands.  With  the  entrance  of  woman  into  world 
politics,  a  new  psychic  force  becomes  active 
within  the  life  of  the  group,  an  emotional  and 
idealistic  energy  which  has  vast  potentialities 
for  the  future  of  the  race.  In  order  to  make 
this  dynamic  force  a  potent  factor  in  the  crea- 
tion of  a  better  society,  it  must  be  guided  and 
controlled  by  a  clear  intelligence  and  ari 
accurate  knowledge  of  all  that  it  can  mean  for 


X  FOREWORD 

human  weal  or  woe.  It  is  to  provide  the  ado- 
lescent girl  with  definite  information  concerning 
her  own  nature  and  the  powers  that  are  latent 
within  it,  and  to  point  the  way  to  a  proper 
utilization  of  her  energies,  that  this  book  has 
been  written.  It  is  given  to  her  in  the  hope 
that  it  may  offer  certain  suggestions  which  will 
enable  her  to  analyze  and  understand  her  own 
individual  personality,  so  that  she  may  be  bet- 
ter able  to  find  her  own  unique  place  in  the 
world,  and  to  make  her  own  peculiar  contribu- 
tion to  the  larger  life  of  the  group  of  which  she 
is  a  member. 

It  is  fitting  that  I  should  at  this  point  express 
my  gratitude  to  the  many  friends  who  have 
helped  me  in  the  preparation  of  this  manuscript 
through  their  sympathetic  interest  and  hearty 
cooperation  in  the  gathering  of  original  mate- 
rial. Especially  do  I  wish  to  acknowledge  my 
indebtedness  to  Dr.  George  E.  Partridge  for  his 
keen  criticisms  and  helpful  suggestions ;  to  Mrs. 
Iva  L.  Peters,  Ph.D.,  for  the  use  of  data  col- 
lected in  the  course  of  her  intimate  association 
with  adolescent  girls ;  to  those  girls,  my  friends 
and  others  whom  I  have  never  seen,  who  have 


FOREWORD  xi 

unsparingly  lain  bare  their  inner  lives  in  order 
that  other  girls  might  be  helped  to  attain  a 
more  complete  understanding  of  their  feelings 
and  impulses;  and,  most  of  all,  to  Pres.  G. 
Stanley  Hall  of  Clark  University,  without  whose 
unerring  insight  and  patient  encouragement 
this  book  would  never  have  been  written. 


Phyllis  Blanchabd. 


Clark  University, 
Worcester,  Mass. 
January  1,  1920. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTEB  PAGE 

Preface  by  G.  Stanley  Hall v 

Author's  Foreword ix 

I.    The  Broader  View 13 

Conception  of  woman  as  a  mysterious  being; 
Definition  of  adolescence;  Philosophical  background 
of  the  genetic  viewpoint: — Fichte's  universal  will, 
Schelling's  evolutionary  interpretation,  Schopen- 
hauer's tvill  to  lire.  Von  Hartmanu's  unconscious, 
Bergson's  elan  vital,  Freud's  theory  of  the  libido. 
Trotter's  view  of  repression,  Adlerian  will  to 
power,  genetic  \'iewpoint  of  Jung,  Maeder's  state- 
ment of  the  significance  of  the  unconscious  in 
human  life;  Application  of  this  philosophical  and 
psychological  principle  to  the  adolescent  girl. 

II.    The  Sexual  and  Maternal    Instincts 

OF  the  Adolescent  Girl     ....       42 

Physiological  background;  Giggling  as  a  method  of  \ 
attracting  the  attention  of  the  opposite  sex;  Adoles- 
cent love  of  dress;  Reveries  concerning  death; 
Suicide  of  adolescent  girls;  Love  fetishes;  Love  for 
older  persons;  Female  periodicity  of  the  sexual 
impulse;  Individual  differences  in  eroticism; 
Dream-life  of  adoie'='cent  girls: — Symbolic  dreams, 
sexual  dream.s;  The  masochistic  tendency;  Self- 
analyses  of  some  adolescent  girls: — Sexual  life, 
day-dreams,  etc.;  Tendency  of  sexual  tension  to 
pass  over  int-o  other  forms  of  emotion;  Indications 
of  the  maternal  instinct. 

III.    The  Adolescent  Conflict      ....       87 

Origin  of  individualistic  impulses;  Will  to  power; 
Factors  which  reinforce  will  to  power  in  adolescent 
girls;  Illustrative  cases;  Freudian  interpretation  of 
the  conflict;  Cases  which  illustrate  the  conflict 
between  the  ^\"ill  to  power  and  the  racial  impulses; 
Feminism  and  the  masculine  protest ;  The  real  adoles- 
cent conflict. 

xiii 


xiv  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

IV.    The  Sublimation  of  the  Libido       .     .     116 

Man  more  sexual  than  other  animals;  Religious 
and  social  repressive  factors;  Vicarious  efferent  out- 
lets for  sex  tension;  Scott  on  sublimation;  Don 
Marquis'  poem;  Significance  of  sublimation  for 
adolescence;  Pedagogical  applications;  The  r61e 
of  sublimation  in  the  solution  of  the  adolescent 
conflict. 

V.    Pathological  Manifestations  of  Libido 

IN  Adolescent  Girls 145 

Hysteria — Freudian  statement;  Healey  on  delin- 
quency of  hysterical  girls ;  Mediumship  in  adolescent 
girls;  G.  Stanley  Hall's  study  of  a  budding  medium; 
Dissociated  personality ;  Pathological  lying ;  Religious 
forms  of  hysteria;  Hauptmann's  Hannele  and  St. 
Theresa;  Jung's  theory  of  Dementia  Praecox;  Case 
study  of  D.  P.  by  Dr.  Lucile  Dooley;  Borderline 
cases;  Therapeutic  measures. 

VL    The  Adolescent  Girl  and  Love      .     .     184 

Love  the  center  of  girlish  reveries ;  Scientific  studies 
of  love: — Composite  sentiment,  mere  sexual  passion 
outgrowth  of  the  sense  of  touch;  Finck's  conception 
of  romantic  love;  Views  of  Carpenter  and  Mante- 
gazza;  Inadequacy  of  these  scientific  formulse; 
Philosophical  theories  of  love: — Empedocles,  Judah 
Leo,  Plato,  Schopenhauer;  View  of  Renooz;  Meta- 
bolic basis  of  sex  attraction;  Weiniger's  male  and 
female  plasm;  Blair  Bell's  sex  complex;  Pearson's 
statistical  studies;  Psychoanalytic  view  of  com- 
pensation through  love;  New  ideal  of  love  and  the 
adolescent  girl. 

VIL    The  Adolescent  Girl  and  Her  Future    213 

Varied  role  of  woman  during  the  war;  Effect  of 
the  war  on  sex  relationships: — Raping  of  conquered 
women;  War  brides,  illegitimacy;  Attitude  of  the 
American  girl  to  the  soldier;  Results  of  the  lowering 
of  sexual  morality  on  society  and  on  the  young 
girl ;  Effect  of  war  on  the  political  status  of  woman ; 
Position  of  woman  in  tho  social  scheme: — Schoon- 
maker's  conception,  Kidd's  vision  of  woman  as  the 
embodiment  of  love,  Madeline  Doty's  summary  of 
what  she  has  done;  Responsihiility  which  rests  on 
the  adolescent  girl;  New  feminine  art  and  literature 
need'ad;  The  religious  belief  for  the  adolescent  girl: — 
Nicolai's  interpretation  of  Christianity  as  a  coemio 
humanism. 


THE 
ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

CHAPTER  I 

THE  BROADER  VIEW 

Conception  of  woman  as  a  mysterious  being;  Definition  of 
adolescence;  Philosophical  background  of  the  genetic 
viewpoint: — Fichte's  universal  will,  Schelling's  evolu- 
tionary interpretation,  Schopenhauer's  will-to-live,  Von 
Hartmann's  unconscious,  Bergson's  elan  vital,  Freud's 
theory  of  the  libido,  Trotter's  view  of  repression,  Ad- 
lerian  will  to  power,  genetic  viewpoint  of  Jung, 
Maeder's  statement  of  the  significance  of  the  uncon- 
scious in  human  life;  Application  of  this  psychological 
and  philosophical  principle  to  the  adolescent  girl. 

Through  long  ages  of  painfully  slow  prog- 
ress, man  has  solved,  one  by  one,  the  secrets  of 
the  universe,  and  has  turned  this  knowledge, 
gained  with  infinite  labor,  to  his  own  advantage, 
reshaping  his  natural  environment  to  suit  his 
needs.    Yet  for  all  his  diligence,  there  have 

13 


14  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

been  a  few  riddles  to  which  he  conld  not  find  the 
answer,  but  which  have  so  piqued  his  curiosity 
that  they  have  been  the  center  of  his  specula- 
tions ever  since  there  came  a  lessening  in  the 
struggle  for  existence  which  permitted  him  to 
use  his  energies  in  abstract  thought.  One  of 
the  most  tantalizing  problems  is  woman,  be- 
cause she  has  remained  a  baffling  mystery,  as 
is  shown  by  the  folklore  and  literature  of  every 
people  at  every  level  of  culture,  in  spite  of  her 
intimate  lelationship  to  man  and  the  common- 
placeness  of  her  existence.  In  the  attempt 
man  has  made  to  fathom  her  soul,  she  has  been 
deified  oi  endowed  with  demonic  powers  as  the 
case  may  be. 

Not  until  the  present  century,  when  the 
steady  hand  of  science  has  brushed  away  the 
clinging  veils  of  superstition,  has  there  been 
any  attempt  at  approach  from  a  rationalistic 
viewpoint,  and  even  now  we  are  hampered  by 
the  weight  of  old  traditions  so  that  our  findings 
have  been  more  or  less  colored  by  ancient  atti- 
tudes and  old  habits  of  thouglit.  Yet  slowly 
and  surely,  the  sum  total  of  our  knowledge  is 
increasing,  so  that  to-day  we  can  at  least  de- 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  15 

scribe  the  psychic  processes  of  the  feminine 
mind  with  some  degree  of  accuracy,  and  ad- 
vance more  or  less  pertinent  theories  to  explain 
its  reactions. 

At  no  time  of  her  life  is  the  soul  of  woman 
more  complex  than  during  the  period  of  her 
adolescence,  when  she  is  swayed  hither  and 
thither  by  sensations  and  emotions  utterly  for- 
eign to  her  previous  experience,  and  responds 
to  these  new  stimulations  in  a  manner  no  less 
inexplicable  to  herself  than  to  the  casual  ob- 
server. So  strange,  indeed,  has  been  her  con- 
duct at  this  time  that  she  has  excited  the  in- 
terest and  attention  of  all  peoples.  The  sav- 
age races  regarded  her  as  possessed  of  super- 
natural powers  and  imbued  with  spiritistic 
forces,  which  they  tried  to  exercise  or  appeaso 
by  an  elaborate  system  of  rites  and  rituals 
known  as  initiation  ceremonies,  and  from  tbr 
influence  of  which  they  sought  to  protect  them- 
selves by  isolating  the  pubescent  girl  and  sur- 
rounding her  with  an  intricate  system  of  pro- 
hibitions and  taboos;  {10.)  No  less  unreason- 
ing was  the  attitude  of  the  Middle  Ages,  as  ex- 
pressed in  the  witchcraft  persecutions,  which 


16  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

persisted  in  sporadic  outbreaks  well  into  later 
history. 

The  modern  scientific  approach,  which  re- 
gards adolescence  as  a  purely  physiological 
phenomenon,  based  entirely  on  metabolic 
processes  within  the  organism,  is  correct  as 
far  as  it  goes,  but  its  grasp  is  too  limited,  its 
scope  too  narrow,  to  reach  the  heart  of  the 
problem.  Only  to  those  scientists  gifted  with 
a  rare  combination  of  psychological  insight 
and  philosophical  breadth  of  vision  is  vouch- 
safed the  ability  to  plumb  the  depths  of  the 
young  girl's  inner  life.  G.  Stanley  Hall  has 
best  formulated  the  fundamental  principle 
which  is  essential  for  the  proper  understanding 
of  adolescence,  and  which  may  be  briefly  stated 
as  follows: 

The  phenomenon  of  adolescence  is  to  be 
understood  only  as  it  is  conceived  as  the  en- 
trance of  the  individual  into  the  larger  life  of 
the  race,  so  that  the  psyche  reverberates  with 
old  phyletic  memories  lying  deep  within  the 
nerve  plexuses  and  ganglia  of  the  subconscious, 
far  below  the  level  of  consciousness ;  feels  the 
impulsion  of  irresistible  forces  which  urge  the 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  17 

boy  or  girl  to  express  in  their  own  person  the 
myriad  activities  which  have  characterised  the 
stirp  in  the  long  aeons  of  its  development; 
and  is  flushed  with  that  mighty  creative  energy 
which  has  forced  the  living  organism  to  ever 
higher  forms  of  existence,  and  now  impels  the 
adolescent  to  be  and  do  all  things  in  his  own 
person.     (4.) 

This  conception  of  adolescence,  which  has  its 
best  illustration  in  the  pubescent  girl,  was  not 
reached  in  a  single  bound,  but  is  the  final  out- 
come of  a  long  series  of  transitions  in  the  prog- 
ress of  human  thought.  If  we  are  to  under- 
stand its  full  significance,  therefore,  we  must 
trace  its  development  from  its  first  faint  in- 
ception to  its  final  expression  in  the  psychologi- 
cal and  philosophical  teachings  of  the  present 
day.  In  order  to  accomplish  this  purpose,  it 
is  necessary  to  make  an  abrupt  break  in  the 
continuity  of  our  thought  at  this  point,  and 
digressing  from  our  main  theme  of  the  adoles- 
cent girl,  to  go  back  into  the  history  of  philoso- 
phy and  give  a  brief  discussion  of  the  develop- 
ment of  the  evolutionary  theory  and  the  psy- 
chology of  the  unconscious. 


18  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

The  genetic  viewpoint  has  been  evolved 
through  a  maze  of  philosophical  wanderings, 
and  is  the  culmination  of  a  train  of  thought 
started  by  Fichte  when  he  departed  from  the 
idea  of  a  universal  substance  which  had  so 
long  obsessed  the  human  mind,  and  postulated 
all  life  as  a  vitalistic,  dynamic  process,  strug- 
gling to  attain  ever  higher  planes  of  existence. 
Heraclitus  and  other  ancient  Greek  thinkers 
had  dimly  foreshadowed  this  conception  in  their 
descriptions  of  an  ever-changing  universe,  but 
their  theories  could  scarcely  be  classed  as  evo- 
lutionary, since  their  world-process  was  a  static 
condition,  involving  no  developmental  tend- 
ency, or  inclination  to  progress. 

To  Fichte,  then,  belongs  the  honor  of  formu- 
lating the  hypothesis  of  an  untiring,  impelling 
force  underlying  all  existence,  an  hypothesis 
which  has  been  a  constant  source  of  controversy 
between  the  later  vitalistic  and  mechanistic 
schools  of  philosophy.  But  his  contribution, 
while  important  as  a  starting  point  for  his  suc- 
cessors, was  of  little  value  in  itself,  for  his 
thinking  was  hampered  by  the  old  metaphysical 
problem  of  freedom  of  choice,  so  that  he  fash- 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  19 

ioned  his  whole  philosophical  system  around 
the  central  statement  that  man  is  a  free  and 
independent  being,  acting  entirely  by  his  own 
volition. 

This  fantasy  of  the  omnipotence  of  the  will, 
in  wjiich  Fichte  sought  to  escape  the  harsh  real- 
ities of  his  dailj^  life,  became  for  him  a  veri- 
table obsession,  so  that  he  postulated  his  great 
life  force,  his  motivating  energj^,  as  pure  abso- 
lute will,  which  finds  partial  expression  in  the 
lives  and  wills  of  finite  beings.  To  the  finite 
human  will  is  given  the  power  to  choose  for 
itself  whether  it  will  work  in  accord  with  the 
infinite  moral  purpose  whence  it  sprang,  or 
follow  devious  paths  of  v»^ickedness  which  per- 
meate the  world  order,  and  delay  the  attain- 
ment of  a  state  of  complete  perfection.  But 
although  the  ability  to  thus  choose  is  freely 
vouchsafed  to  man,  the  resistance  of  the  outer 
material  world  is  never  wholly  overcome  by 
the  strivings  of  humanity,  the  universal  moral 
purpose  is  never  fully  realized,  and  world  suc- 
ceeds world  in  the  never-ending  straggle  which 
does  not  realize  its  utter  hopelessness,  but  is 
driven  on  continuously  by  that  irresistible  and 


20  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

eternal  energy  which  is  the  source  and  life  and 
end  of  all  things, — the  infinite  will. 

In  Schelling's  philosophical  system,  this 
universal  will  received  a  pantheistic  setting  and 
became  the  force  which  pervades  all  nature, 
both  inorganic  and  organic,  as  well  as  the  es- 
sence of  human  life  and  being.  For  this  broad- 
er view,  the  cosmic  energy  of  which  Fichte  saw 
only  the  voluntaristic  side  is  conceived  as  a 
living,  creative,  purposive  principle  of  evolu- 
tion, which  moves  from  unconsciousness  to  con- 
sciousness, and  has  for  its  ultimate  goal  the 
self-conscious  psychic  life  of  man.  In  living 
beings,  this  evolutionary  process  moves  onward 
from  the  organism  capable  only  of  rudimentary 
sensation  through  instinct  to  intelligence  and 
creative  imagination. 

The  highest  stage  of  its  expression  is  reached 
in  creative  artistic  work ;  the  artist  imitates  the 
creative  principle  of  the  universe,  and  in  so 
doing  becomes  conscious  of  its  presence  within 
his  own  life.  Only  through  such  intellectual 
intuition  as  this  can  man  become  aware  of  the 
existence  of  the  living,  moving  element  of  na- 
ture ;  the  use  of  reason  alone  will  never  demon- 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  21 

strate  its  existence.  Thus  not  voluntary  mo- 
rality, as  Fichte  held,  but  artistic  intuition  be- 
comes the  most  harmonious  coordination  of  the 
individual  with  the  absolute  will-force.  Here- 
in, as  we  shall  see  later,  Schelling  made  an  im-, 
portant  advance  over  Fichte,  and  in  a  sense" 
prophesied,  however  vaguely,  one  of  the  prin- 
ciples to  be  established  more  than  fifty  years 
after  the  philosopher's  death  by  a  new  science 
— Psychoanalysis. 

The  deification  of  the  will  begun  by  Fichte 
was  carried  to  an  even  greater  extreme  by 
Schopenhauer,  in  his  attempt  to  present  a  de- 
tailed analysis  of  the  universal  energy  which 
permeates  all  existence.  Instead  of  two  op- 
posing worlds  of  force  and  matter,  Schopen- 
hauer, like  Schelling,  conceives  of  will  as  thr 
vital  essence  of  all  things,  a  subjective  reality 
which  objectifies  itself  in  the  material  world 
of  our  sense  perception.  This  will-energy  is 
expressed  as  a  blind  force  in  the  inorganic 
world,  but  becomes  conscious  of  its  existence  in 
the  living  organism.  In  the  latter  manifesta- 
tion it  is  to  be  distinguished  from  its  other 
forms  by  being  conceived  as  the  wUl-to-live  of 


22  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

the  individual,  which  determines  the  structural 
characteristics  of  the  lower  forms  of  life  in 
harmony  with  its  desires,  and  creates  the  intel- 
lectual faculties  to  serve  its  purpose  in  man. 

In  the  objective  world,  we  see  the  result  of 
the  craving  of  these  various  wills  for  visible 
expression  in  the  bitter  struggle  for  existence, 
in  which  each  strives  to  survive  at  the  expense 
of  the  others;  but  since  all  will  is  equally  im- 
mortal, only  individuals  are  destroyed ;  the  spe- 
cies, or  will-type,  cannot  be  annihilated.  Thus, 
while  the  individual  will-to-live  guides  the  man- 
ner of  growth  and  the  life-per serving  activities 
of  the  organism,  there  is  a  higher  power  which 
may  be  expressed  in  activities  directly  detri^ 
mental  to  the  individual  through  whom  it  is 
manifested.  The  most  common  illustration  is 
the  bliiiJ  impulse  of  sox,  which  often  results  in 
individual  unhappiness  or  even  destruction,  in 
direct  negation  to  the  life  impulse,  but  which 
subserves  the  more  powerful  will-to-live  of  the 
race.  And  so  we  advance  a  step  beyond 
Fichte's  teaching  that  man  is  a  free  and  inde- 
pendent being,  and  find  that  he  is  governed  by 

pulses  beyond  his  understanding  and  con- 


X-im 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  23 

trol,  which  are  the  visible  expression  of  the 
great  racial  will-to-live,  of  which  he  is  but  an 
infinitesimal  portion. 

To  the  idea  of  will  as  the  ultimate  basis  of 
an  adequate  conception  of  the  great  mystery  of 
existence,  Edouard  von  Hartmann  adds  an- 
other element  which  entitles  him  to  be  con- 
sidered of  utmost  importance  as  a  link  in  the 
chain  of  thought  which  has  its  climax  in  the 
modern  genetic  philosophy,  with  its  conception 
of  the  Unconscious.  It  is,  indeed,  necessary 
to  assume  the  operation  of  a  will  in  nature,  but 
this  will  must  be  conceived  as  unconscious,  al- 
though at  the  same  time  it  is  intelligent  and 
working  toward  some  logical  end.  Yet  it  is  to 
be  emphasized  that  the  end  itself,  while  appar- 
ently purposely  sought  by  the  organism,  is 
never  consciously  recognized  in  the  course  of 
the  elaborate  series  of  adaptations  which  lead 
to  its  final  accomplishment.  As  for  matter,  it 
consists  simply  of  centers  of  force,  or  uncon- 
scious will-impulses,  which  represent  the  activ- 
ities of  the  absolute,  universal  will.  This  in- 
finite force  has  in  it  an  element  of  reason,  so 
that  the  world  will  expresses  itself  in  a  rational 


24  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

.  and  orderly  purpose  of  evolution.  This  in- 
sistence on  the  importance  of  the  unconscious 
factors  of  life  was  a  significant  addition  to 
human  thought,  but  it  remained  for  von  Hart- 
mann's  successors  to  enlarge  this  doctrine  and 
place  it  upon  a  firm  empirical  basis. 

Although  somewhat  reminiscent  of  the  Ger- 
man philosophy  of  the  will  as  outlined  above, 
Henri  Bergson  is  equally  worthy  of  considera- 
tion, for  his  is  the  modern  evolutionary  philoso- 
phy par  excellence.  Although  he  is  absolutely 
opposed  to  the  mechanistic  school,  he  has  gone 
far  beyond  the  teachings  of  other  vitalists  in 
giving  us  the  doctrine  of  creative  evolution, 
and  in  his  insistence  upon  the  validity  of  intui- 
tional conclusions  as  opposed  to  purely  intel- 
lectual deductions.  Whether  we  can  find  any 
logical  evidence  or  not,  according  to  Bergson 
^.  we  are  safe  in  trusting  the  intuition  which  tells 
us  that  there  is  an  original  life  impetus,  which 
passes  from  one  generation  of  germ  plasm  to 
the  next  through  the  organisms  which  bridge 
the  intervals  between  generations.  Life  itself 
is  an  unceasing  creation ;  the  life  force,  or  elan 
vital,  which  was  homogeneous  in  the  beginning. 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  25 

tends  to  differentiate  into  varying  forms,  which 
are  not  in  accord  with  any  preconceived  pur- 
pose, but  are  created  in  the  very  course  of 
the  evolutionary  process. 

There  have  been  developed  three  chief  modes 
of  expression  for  this  blind,  creative  impulse; 
the  condition  of  torpor,  which  is  characteristic 
of  the  plant  world;  the  instinctive  life  of  the 
lower  organisms,  which  culminates  in  the' 
hymenoptera;  and  the  intelligent  existence  of 
higher  animals,  which  is  at  its  best  in  man- 
kind. The  manner  in  which  this  elan  vital  finds 
expression  is  of  little  import,  however;  the  es- 
sential thing  is  the  fact  that  there  runs  through 
every  living  organism  a  vital  current,  which  is 
hardly  evident  except  as  it  occasionally  becomes 
visible  in  works  of  genius,  but  which  is  the 
(^)  Animating  force  of  the  individual,  and  is  passed 
on  continuously  from  one  generation  to  the 
next. 

The  last  stage  in  the  train  of  philosophical 
thought  which  culminated  in  the  genetic  con- 
cept briefly  stated  at  the  beginning  of  this  chap- 
ter was  the  development  of  a  new  branch  of 
psychology   known    as    psychoanalysis,    which 


26.  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

was  begun  by  Freud  and  Adler,  and  placed  on 
a  broad  evolutionary  basis  by  Jung  and  Maeder. 
Sigmund  Freud,  the  originator  of  the  new  psy- 
chology, Wt.fi  the  first  scientist  to  make  exten- 
sive use  of  the  idea  of  ^dv-  snbcon'^^eious  intro- 
duced by  von  Hartmann.  In  his  analyses  of 
neurotic  patients,  Dr.  Freud  discovered  that 
almost  invariably  the  main  cause  of  the  psychic 
derangement  was  a  suppressed  sexual  impulse, 
which,  to  use  his  phraseology,  had  become  dis- 
placed from  the  conscious  to  the  subconscious 
strata  of  the  nervous  system.  A  little  later,  his 
studies  led  him  to  believe  that  the  genius  was 
likewise  inspired  by  this  unconscious  sexual 
energy,  which  had  been  denied  expression  in 
its  primitive  biological  form.  i^ 

*  In  accordance  with  the  empirical  data  thus 
established.  Dr.  Freud  formulated  his  theory 
of  the_lil)ido,  which  is  the  simple  statement  that 
the  motivating  principle  of  all  human  activity 
is  the  procreative  instinct,  which  in  its  broad- 
est interpretation  is  better  termed  libido,  since 
it  includes  a  wide  range  of  activities  not  com- 
monly classed  under  the  sexual  impulse  proper. 
When  suppressed,  or  denied  the  opportunity  of 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  27 

discharge  through  its  primary  outlet  of  sexual 
intercourse,  the  energy  of  the  libido  is  normally 
transmuted  into  higher  nervous  processes,  and 
transversing  neural  pathways  of  association, 
reinforces  the  aesthetic  creative  impulses,  and 
spurs  the  artist  to  his  best  endeavors.  This 
process  is  knoT^m  as  Sublimation  in  the  psycho- 
analytic terminolc/g/.  ^hen  it  fails,  the  libido 
seeks  pathological  efferent  pathways,  and  util- 
izes its  energy  in  weaving  day-dreams  and  illu- 
sions around  its  frustrated  desires,  or  becoming 
converted  downwards,  produces  the  physical 
symptoms  of  hysteria  and  other  neurotic  dis- 
turbances. In  either  case,  whether  it  seeks 
a  higher  or  lower  outlet,  the  process  takes 
place  wholly  outside  the  range  of  conscious 
recognition  or  control,  and  hence  the  iiiixtii- 
scious  becomes  the  dominant  factor  of  human 
life. 

According  to  Freud,  the  sexual  desires  are 
displaced  from  consciousness  because  they  are 
so  often  not  in  complete  accord  with  conven- 
tional moral  standards.  The  mind  has  come  to 
exercise  a  function  of  censorship  which  allows 
only  those  thoughts  and  washes  which  are  in 


28  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

harmony  with  the  contemporary  social  code  to 
enter  consciousness,  but  because  the  moral 
standards  are  continually  being  modified,  they 
never  have  more  than  a  superficial  place  in  the 
psyche,  and  hence  the  dominance  of  the  uncon- 
scious motives,  which  triumph  over  conscious 
morality  by  entering  into  behavior  or  into 
thought  in  disguise,  as  symbolic  acts  and  im- 
agery. 

It  remained  for  Trotter,  an  English  psychol- 
ogist, to  realize  that  the  Freudian  ''censor" 
had  a  foundation  as  deep  as  that  of  any  other 
mental  mechanism,  since  it  rooted  in  the  gre- 
garious or  herd  instinct.  It  is  the  gregarious 
impulse,  the  longing  to  be  like  one's  fellows, 
and  to  do  as  they  do,  which  impels  the  accept- 
ance of  social  customs  even  though  they  be  not 
entirely  in  harmony  with  other  cravings.  (9.) 
In  this  sense,  repression  is  not  a  peculiar  prop- 
erty of  the  psyche,  a  kind  of  new  faculty  of 
the  mind,  but  is  the  inhibition  of  one  instinctive 
desire  by  another  equally  powerful  and  funda- 
mental. 

Influenced  by  the  Nietzschean  dogma  of  the 
will  to  power,  Alfred  Adler  broke  away  from 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  29 

the  teachings  of  the  Freudian  school,  of  which 
he  was  originally  a  member,  and  attempted  to 
establish  the  Ichtrieb,  or  Wille  zur  Macht,  as 
the  root  of  unconscious  cerebration.  In  Ad- 
ler's  estimation,  the  libido,  or  racial  instinct 
is  quite  overshadowed  by  the  egoistic  impulses 
which  had  their  primordial  source  in  the  in- 
stinct of  self-preservation,  and  are  manifested 
in  man  through  an  inordinate  craving  for  pow- 
er. The  physiological  basis  which  determines 
the  strength  of  this  desire  in  the  individual  is 
defective  organic  structure,  which  retards  proc- 
esses of  adaptation,  and  creates  a  feeling  of 
inferiority  and  inability  to  meet  the  struggle 
for  existence,  for  which  the  sufferer  tries  to 
compensate  by  increasing  the  quality  of  his 
higher  psychic  processes.  In  its  extreme  form, 
this  produces  the  intellectual  genius,  who  thus 
receives  his  impetus  from  his  physical  weak- 
nesses; but  it  also  produces  the  neurotic,  who 
takes  refuge  from  the  hardships  which  are  too 
stern  for  his  impaired  organism  in  a  world  of 
fantasy  or  uses  his  weakness  to  obtain  control 
of  his  associates,  who  dare  not  refuse  his  most 
outrageous  requests  lest  they  upset  his  delicate 


30  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

nervous  mechanism,  and  precipitate  a  final 
breakdown.  And  so  the  famous  flight  from 
reality  first  described  by  Freud,  becomes  an  at- 
tempt to  satisfy  the  dream  of  power,  instead 
of  the  creation  of  an  illusion  of  a  happy  love- 
life. 

These  opposing  views  of  Freud  and  Adler 
were  finally  adjusted  by  the  synthetic  genius 
of  Jung,  who  demanded  an  enlargement  of  the 
concept  of  the  libido  to  include  the  sum  total 
of  human  activities,  so  that  it  becomes  synony- 
mous with  the  Bergsonian  elan  vital.  (6.) 
From  this  viewpoint,  the  sexual  and  social  in- 
stincts, and  the  individualistic  impulses, 
whether  manifested  as  the  simple  instinct  of 
self-preservation  or  in  the  will  to  power,  are 
only  two  different  forms  of  the  same  life  ener- 
gy, and  the  neurotic  diatjbesis  is  the  result  of  a 
struggle  between  the  two  motives  for  simulta- 
neous expression.  As  one  or  the  other  principle 
becomes  the  dominant  factor  in  a  personality, 
we  have  the  racial  or  feeling  type,  who  is  tech- 
nically known  as  the  extrovert,  and  the  egoistic 
or  thinking  type,  who  is  styled  an  introvert. 
The  great  artists  have  always  belonged  to  the 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  31 

former  class,  while  the  intellectual  genius  is 
inevitably  an  introvert.  (5.)  In  the  normal 
personality,  the  two  functions  are  fairly  well 
balanced,  so  that  first  one  and  then  the  other 
predominates,  but  neither  succeeds  in  exclud- 
ing the  other  from  consciousness,  and  relegat- 
ing it  overlong  to  the  unconscious  levels  of  the 
psyche. 

Besides  the  unconscious  phenomena  describee 
by  Freud,  which  consist  essentially  of  repressed 
wishes  and  old  childhood  memories,  Jung  postu- 
lates an  absolute  subconscious  which  consists  of 
old  phyletic  memories  and  impulses  deeply  in- 
grained within  the  more  primitive  layers  of 
neural  tissue  which  preced«^}  the  central  nervous 
system  in  phylogenetiu  development.  The 
echoes  from  these  prr*''  val  memory  traces  re- 
verberate through  the  higher;  nerve  centers,  and 
give  rise  to  feelings  and  emotions  wholly  for-  , 
eign  to  the  experience  of  the  individual,  but^  /^ 
which  have  been  of  vital  issue  to  the  stirprln 
its  struggle  for  survival.  There  has  always 
been  a  tendency  to  project  these  mysterious 
feeling-tones  upon  some  external  object,  and 
to  endow  that  object  with  supernal  powers,  con- 


32  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

ceiving  it  as  the  cause  of  these  indefinable  emo- 
tions. In  this  manner  the  libido  or  elan  vital, 
or  horme,  stirring  within  the  depths  of  the 
absolute  subconscious,  has  created  the  folklore, 
mythology  and  religions  of  all  peoples. 

Accepting  Jung's  interpretation  unreserved- 
ly, Alphonse  Ma«ler  further  points  out  that  in 
the  disregard  of  these  unconscious  forces  in 
human  nature  lies  the  great  error  of  the  intel- 
lectualistic  and  mechanistic  philosophy  of  our 
scientific  era.  There  is  no  sure  guide  for  hu- 
man destiny  except  the  intuitive  impulses  of  the 
unconscious,  which  are  but  a  psychic  manifesta- 
tion of  the  creative  and  regenerative  principle 
in  nature.  In  yielding  to  these  motives  we  are 
obeying  the  great  cosmic  force  which  created 
all  life,  from  the  lowliest  bit  of  protoplasm  to 
the  highest  intellectual  or  artistic  genius ;  which 
gave  to  the  lower  organisms  the  power  to  re- 
generate lost  parts  as  it  gave  to  man  the  innate 
tendency  to  resist  disease.  The  assimilative 
property  of  the  cell,  its  power  to  change  inor- 
ganic substances  into  its  own  living  material, 
is  the  nearest  approach  to  this  life  principle  on 
the    biological    side.    Its    primordial    psychic 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  33 

manifestation  was  the  creation  of  mythologj'^ 
and  religion  in  the  early  days  of  the  race.  Mod- 
ern man  must  also  learn  to  understand  and 
follow  this  intuitive  guidance  of  his  uncon- 
scious, not  blindly,  but  intelligently  in  the  clear 
light  of  his  scientific  knowledge.  In  no  other 
direction  lies  the  ultimate  salvation  of  human- 
ity ;  without  such  guidance  other  cataclysms  like 
the  recent  war  will  inevitably  ensue,  man  will 
fall  short  of  the  possibilities  within  the  limits 
of  his  attainment,  and  the  great  evolutionary 
principle  will  have  to  begin  anew  the  creation 
of  a  higher  race  of  beings.     (8.) 

The  insight  acquired  through  this"  series  of 
philosophical  studies  enables  us  to  evolve  cer- 
tain fundamental  principles  for  our  guidance 
through  the  labyrinth  of  the  young  girl's  soul. 
As  we  have  seen,  the  vital  element  of  all  exist- 
ence is  an  irreducible,  irresistible  energy — call 
it  libido,  elan  vital,  horme,  will-to-live,  what  you 
will — which  animates  the  organism  and  shapes 
its  acts  to  suit  its  inscrutable  purposes.  It 
is  not  always  favorable  to  the  existence  of  the 
individual,  to  be  sure,  yet  to  it  he  owes  his  very 
life  and  being,  since  he  exists  for  the  sole  pur- 


34  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

pose  of  insuring  its  continuity  and  receives 
whatever  spark  of  genius  dwells  within  him 
from  its  exuberant  energy.  It  is  a  wholly  un- 
conscious force,  obscure  in  all  its  activities,  but 
apparent  in  the  otherwise  inexplicable  phenom- 
ena to  which  it  gives  rise. 

With  the  maturity  of  certain  functions 
through  which  it  has  long  found  a  favorable 
means  of  expression,  this  vital  force  engulfs 
the  individual  in  its  mighty  current  and  sweeps 
him  along  with  its  overwhelming  power.  The 
adolescent  is  experiencing  its  full  strength  in 
his  own  person  for  the  first  time,  hence  the 
storm  and  stress  of  this  period  of  life.  -The 
adolescent  girl  is  unduly  sensitive  to  this 
strange  force  within  her  being,  because  to  her,- 
much  more  than  to  her  brother,  is  given  the 
serious  mission  of  transmitting  it  intact  to  suc- 
.ceeding  generations.  Benjamin  Kidd  recog- 
nizes this  when  he  asserts  that  her  high  calling 
of  motherhood  has  made  of  woman  a  being 
utterly  unlike  man,  in  that  she  is  capable  of 
far  greater  self-sacrifice  and  altruism  than  he, 
has  developed  to  a  remarkable  degree  the  abil- 
ity to  refuse  present  pleasures  in  the  interest  of 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  35 

future  racial  welfare,  and  has  a  measureless 
capacity  for  long-circuiting  her  emotions  which 
it  would  be  well  for  man  to  emulate.  Indeed, 
Kidd  goes  so  far  as  to  demand  that  woman  be 
given  control  of  human  affairs,  that  the  world 
may  henceforth  be  ruled  by  all-embracing  love 
and  unselfish  devotion.     (7.) 

At  first  glance,  this  view  may  seem  extreme, 
but  as  we  examine  it  more  closely,  and  grasp 
its  full  meaning,  we  are  forced  to  the  conclu- 
sion that  after  all  it  is  quite  correct,  and  that 
woman  is  indeed  the  living  embodiment  of  the 
racial  and  altruistic  forms  of  the  libido  or  elan 
vital,  just  as  man  is  the  expression  of  the  indi- 
vidualistic forces,  or  will  to  power.  The  life 
of  woman  is  essentially  a  life  of  service;  sho 
lives  not  for  herself,  but  for  the  comfort  and 
welfare  of  her  mate  and  offspring,  or  casts  her- 
self into  the  maelstrom  of  social  and  political 
affairs  in  order  to  make  the  world  a  better  and 
safer  dwelling  place  for  its  children.  It  is  this 
tender  sympathy  which  has  made  her  figure  in 
history  as  the  eternal  mother,  and  has  moved 
man  to  worship  at  the  shrine  of  the  Madonna,,/ 


36  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

who  is  the  glorified  symbol  of  all  that  woman 
stands  for  in  the  course  of  human  destiny. 

Being  thus  preeminently  the  generic  being, 
it  is  only  natural  that  woman  should  have  a 
larger  unconscious  life  than  man,  for  the  ego- 
istic impulses  enter  the  field  of  consciousness 
more  readily  than  the  less  obvious  racial  and 
social  instincts.  That  this  is  indeed  the  case, 
is  indicated  by  the  proportionately  greater  sym- 
pathetic nervous  system  of  woman,  and  by  the 
fact  that  she  achieves  her  decisions  with  a 
rapidity  far  beyond  the  slower  reasoning  facul- 
ties of  man,  by  means  of  her  so-called  intuitive 
processes,  which  are  nothing  more  than  uncon- 
scious reactions,  which  take  place  without  her 
realization  or  volition. 

The  incontrovertible  proof  of  her  subordina- 
tion of  self  to  the  welfare  of  the  group,  is  the 
fact  that  upon  woman  the  function  of  transmit- 
ting the  torch  of  life  falls  with  incredible  sever- 
ity, so  that  she  suffers  all  things  in  her  own 
person  in  order  that  the  race  may  endure. 
Nor  does  her  self-sacrifice  end  with  the  great 
act  of  child-bearing;  for  thenceforth  she  re- 
nounces her  own  individuality,  and  lives  only 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  37 

in  the  life  of  her  offspring,  tending  them  with 
supreme  devotion,  utterly  oblivious  to  the  per- 
sonal discomforts  and  renunciations  which  they 
entail.  The  accomplishment  of  man's  share  in 
the  procreative  act,  on  the  other  hand,  not  only 
involvesjiiLsacrifip.e,  hut  is, intimately  connected 
with  his  own  pleasure,  and  is  thus  in  entire 
harmony  with  his  egoistic  tendencies.  Indeed, 
under  the  existing  social  conditions,  he  is  apt 
to  sacrifice  others  in  his  unheeding  obedience 
to  the  great  sexual  impetus. 

Only  under  the  tension  of  some  momentous 
event,  some  supreme  crisis,  does  man  give  him- 
self over  to  the  altruistic  impulses,  and  follow 
them  even  at  the  risk  of  his  own  happiness  and 
of  life  itself.  No  better  illustration  of  this 
could  be  found  than  the  great  World  War,  in 
which  the  men  of  all  countries,  threatened  with 
national  destruction,  felt  the  gregarious  in- 
stinct rise  paramount  to  individualistic  consid- 
erations, for  the  mome-  l,  and  performed  feats 
of  the  utmost  heroism  ,  with  no  thought  of  self 
and  no  fear  of  a  deaiii  which  seemed  inevitable. 
Yet  this  unswerving  courage  and  utter  willing- 
ness to  give  one's  life  blood  for  the  welfare  of 


38  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

the  social  group,  is  the  universal  characteristic 
of  womankind;  the  braving  of  death  for  the 
sake  of  the  race  is  an  everyday  occurrence  to 
her,  since  it  is  concomitant  with  the  biological 
function  of  motherhood. 

It  becomes  evident  that  Jung  might  well  have 
carried  his  philosophy  a  step  farther,  and  des- 
ignated woman  as  the  Freudian  or  feeling  type, 
and  man  as  the  Adlerian  or  power  type.  And 
he  might  also  have  said  that  the  supreme  strug- 
gle between  these  two  principles  of  human  con- 
duct takes  place  at  adolescence,  which  cannot 
be  adequately  explained  upon  any  other  basis. 
The  struggle  is  more  profound  in  the  girl  than 
in  the  boy,  because  she  must  leani  to  achieve 
complete  subordination  of  the  egocentric  ten- 
dencies which  have  been  the  sole  guide  of  her 
conduct  up  to  this  time.  The  boy,  on  the  other 
hand,  after  a  brief  period  in  which  his  emo- 
tional life  is  flushed  mth  this  new  impulse  to 
serve  his  fellows,  returns  to  a  great  extent  to 
his  old  condition  of  egoism  and  self -aggrandise- 
ment. It  is  the  intensity  of  this  struggle  and 
the  enormous  difficulty  of  entirely  achieving  her 
goal,  which  has  stamped  woman  with  a  greater 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  39 

taint  of  neuroticism  than  man;  when  the  war 
brought  to  him  the  same  problem  of  self-immo- 
lation, he,  too,  succumbed  to  the  curse  of  neuro- 
sis, as  a  result  of  his  inability  to  accomplish 
this  end. 

The  existing  economic  and  social  order  has^ 
made  it  increasingly  hard  for  woman  to  attain 
the  full  development  of  her  ultimate  nature,  for 
in  many  cases,  the  absorbing  task  of  marriage 
and  motherhood  which  originally  fulfilled  her 
organic  needs  has  been  denied.  There  has 
been  a  proportionate  increase  of  neuroticism  as 
one  result  of  this  condition,  but  a  different 
method  of  meeting  the  problem  has  been  the  en- 
largement of  the  sphere  of  woman's  activities 
which  has  permitted  her  to  express  her  tender 
impulses  in  service  to  mankind  instead  of  in 
her  own  restricted  family  circle,  so  that  she 
gains  in  broadness  of  scope  what  she  loses  in 
intensity  of  feeling.  A  third  solution,  the  en- 
trance of  woman  into  the  field  of  economic  com- 
petition, has  tended  to  hinder  her  yielding  of 
her  being  to  the  clamoring  feelings  and  emo- 
tions which  assert  their  just  claim  to  her  organ- 
ism, and  to  overemphasize  the  individualistic 


40  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

side  of  her  nature.  Hence  she  has  evolved  the 
social  philosophy  of  feminism,  and  is  demand- 
ing economic  independence  and  political  equal- 
ity with  man  in  order  that  she  may  have  ample 
opportunity  for  self-development. 

The  true  feminism  is  an  entirely  different 
product,  and  is  based  on  the  assumption  that 
woman  has  a  right  to  demand  that  she  be  as- 
sured adequate  expression  of  her  love  and  sym- 
pathy, whether  in  the  family  circle  or  in  the 
mothering  of  mankind,  and  that  she  be  per- 
mitted a  voice  in  the  shaping  of  world  affairs 
for  the  welfare  of  society  and  of  the  race.  It 
is  inconceivable  that  so  legitimate  a  request 
can  be  long  denied ;  the  question  is,  will  woman 
be  prepared  to  use  this  new  power  when  it 
shall  be  placed  in  her  keeping?  And  the  an- 
swer depends  upon  the  adolescent  girl  and 
whether  she  succeeds  in  passing  through  her 
great  crisis  sanely  and  normally,  to  emerge 
from  the  years  of  her  probation  a  true  woman, 
strengthened  by  the  bitter  conflict  which  she 
has  undergone,  and  ready  to  cast  aside  all 
thought  of  self  in  the  interests  of  humanity  and 
of  the  race.    In  this  direction,  too,  her  own 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  41 

personal  happiness  lies.  Only  as  she  gives  her- 
self over  unreservedly  to  these  deeper  motives 
of  her  physiological  and  psychological  makeup, 
or  as  Maeder  would  phrase  it,  only  as  she  obeys 
the  intuitive  guidance  of  the  unconscious,  can 
she  find  herself  truly  in  harmony  with  the 
fundamental  laws  of  the  great  cosmic  process. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY  FOR  CHAPTER  I 

1.  Adler,  Alfred.     The  Neurotic  Constitution.     456  pp. 

Moffat,  Yard.    N.  Y.,  1917. 

2.  Bergson,  Henri.    Creative  Evolution.    407  pp.    Holt. 

N.  Y.,  1911. 

3.  Freud,  Sigmund.     Three  Contributions  to  the  Sexual 

Theory.    91  pp.    Jour.  Nerv.  &  Ment.  Disease  Pub. 
Co.    N.  Y.,  1910. 

4.  Hall,  G.   Stanley.     Adolescence.     2  vols.     Appleton. 

N.  Y.,  1904. 

5.  Jung,  Carl  G.    Die  Psychologie  der  Unbewussten  Pro- 

zesse.    135  pp.    Rascher  &  Cie.    ZUrich,  1917. 

6.     .     Collected  Papers  on  Analytical  Psychol- 
ogy.    492  pp.    Moffat,  Yard.    N.  Y.,  1917. 

7.  Kidd,   Benjamin,     The   Science  of  Power.     306  pp. 

Methuen.     London,  1918. 

8.  Maeder,   Alphonse.      Guerison    et    Evolution   dans   la 

Vie  de  FAme.    70  pp.    Rascher  &  Cie.    Zurich,  1918. 

9.  Trotter,  W.    Instincts  of  the  Herd  in  Peace  and  War. 

212  pp.     Unwin:     London,  1916. 
10.     Van  Waters,  Miriam.     The  Adolescent   Girl   Among 
Primitive  Peoples.     Jour.  Relig.  Psy.  VI,  4,   Oct., 
1913,  pp.  375-421;  VII,  1,  Jan.,  1914,  pp.  75-120. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE    SEXUAL    AND    MATERNAL    INSTINCTS    OF    THE 
ADOLESCENT  GHIL 

Physiological  background;  Giggling  as  a  method  of  attract- 
ing the  attention  of  the  opposite  sex;  Adolescent  love 
of  dress ;  Reveries  concerning  death ;  Suicide  of  adoles- 
cent girls;  Love  fetishes;  Love  for  older  persons; 
Female  periodicity  of  the  sexual  impulse;  Individual 
differences  in  eroticism;  Dream-life  of  adolescent 
girls: — Symbolic  dreams,  sexual  dreams;  The  maso- 
chistic tendency;  Self -analyses  of  some  adolescent 
girls :  Sexual  life,  day-dreams,  etc. ;  Tendency  of  sexual 
tension  to  pass  over  into  other  fomis  of  emotion ;  Indi- 
cations of  the  maternal  instinct. 

While  Jung  was  of  sufficiently  philosophical 
turn  of  mind  to  enable  him  to  develop  the  hy- 
pothesis of  a  great  evolutionary  force  of  life 
and  the  theory  of  the  unconscious  to  the  fullest 
extent,  he  was  at  the  same  time  too  much  the 
scientist  to  neglect  the  fact  that  the  vital  im- 
pulse has  a  somatic  as  well  as  a  psychic  side. 
We  find,  therefore,  that  he  describes  the  organ- 

42. 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  43 

ism  as  equipped  with  an  infinite  variety  of  phys- 
ical structures,  the  functioning  of  which  is  the 
physiological  mechanism  through  which  the 
elan  vital,  or  libido,  finds  an  outlet  in  manifold 
activities.  The  first  expression  is  an  entirely'' 
selfish  one,  and  is  the  desire  for  nutrition  which 
is  manifested  through  the  motor  reflex  of  suck- 
ing in  the  human  infant.     (19.) 

In  its  broadest  and  most  inclusive  interpre- 
tation, this  hunger-motif  becomes  one  of  the 
two  great  dominating  factors  in  the  existence  of 
mankind;  the  other  is  the  sexual  impulse, 
which,  although  the  Freudians  have  demon- 
strated its  activities  at  an  exceedingly  early 
age  (12),  attains  its  full  significance  only  at  the 
critical  period  of  adolescence,  which  is,  in  a 
sense,  a  rebirth  of  the  individual,  since  with 
its  advent,  there  must  be  made  readjustments 
almost  as  radical  as  those  attending  the  transi- 
tion from  the  pre-natal  state  to  the  external 
world.  It  follows  that  if  we  are  to  make  an" 
intelligent  study  of  the  adolescent  girl,  we  must 
know  something  of  the  manner  in  which  this 
second  motive  is  manifested  in  her  feelings  and 
conduct,  a  knowledge  which  can  be  gained  only 


44  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

by  a  concrete  analysis  of  her  erotic  life  in  all 
its  phases. 

The  most  obvious  physiological  phenomena 
which  characterize  the  onset  of  puberty  in  the 
female  sex  are  the  establishment  of  the  periodic 
menstrual  flow,  and  the  rapid  development  of 
the  mammary  glands  and  other  secondary  sex- 
ual characters  {26;30).  Besides  these,  there 
is  a  less  apparent  but  equally  important  change 
in  the  whole  body  metabolism,  for  as  Blair  Bell 
has  shown,  it  is  not  merely  the  reproductive 
organs  and  their  hormones  which  control  the 
physical  manifestations  of  sexuality,  but  all  the 
glands  of  internal  secretion,  acting  together, 
which  determine  the  erotic  life  of  the  individual. 
Bell  concludes  tliat  before  adolescence,  there  is 
very  little  difference  between  the  metabolic 
processes  of  the  male  and  female  organisms ;  but 
at  that  period,  the  endocritic  glands,  interacting 
harmoniously  by  means  of  mutual  control 
through  the  hormones  which  are  produced  by 
them,  form  a  metabolic  synthesis  which  may 
well  be  termed  the  sex  complex  and  thus  deter- 
mine the  degree  of  masculinity  or  femininity. 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  45 

There  are  thus  seen  to  be  two  types  of  phe- 
nomena which  compose  the  physiological  side 
of  adolescence :  the  specific  sexual  stimuli  from 
the  pressure  of  internal  secretions  formed  with- 
in the  reproductive  glands  proper,  and  a  gen- 
eral change  of  feeling-tone  which  is  conditioned 
by  the  functioning  of  the  other  glands  of  inter- 
nal secretion.  This  second  factor  is  not  at  all 
of  a  strictly  sexual  nature,  but  as  Cannon  (4) 
and  Crile  (7)  have  shown,  is  the  common  meta- 
bolic background  characteristic  of  all  powerful 
emotions,  whether  of  fear,  anger  or  sex. 

In  the  case  of  the  adolescent  girl  the  emo- 
tional state  is  of  undoubted  sexual  origin,  and 
is  probably  produced  in  response  to  hormone 
secretions  from  the  ovaries,  which  stimulate  the 
other  endocritic  glands  to  activity.  It  is  the 
general  sensations  from  this  increased  endo- 
critic functioning  which  produce  the  affective 
changes  in  the  mental  life  of  the  adolescent  girl, 
since  in  her  case  there  is  no  direct  source  of 
constant  stimulation  such  as  that  furnished  by 
the  accumulation  of  spermatic  fluid  in  the  male. 
Moreover,  this  emotional  energy  does  not  re- 
quire a  specifically  sexual  outlet,  for  by  its  very 


46  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

metabolic  nature,  it  is  readily  capable  of  pass- 
ing over  into  some  other  emotion,  such  as  anger, 
fear  or  religious  ecstasy.  However  lightened 
may  be  her  task  of  self-control  on  this  account, 
the  adolescent  girl  has  nevertheless  entered 
upon  the  definitely  sexual  phase  of  her  exist- 
ence, a  phase  which  Dr.  Frink  has  very  well 
characterised  in  these  words : 

* '  Sexual  emotion,  tension,  or  preparedness  is 
less  dependent  on  external  situation  than  are 
other  normal  emotions.  We  do  not  feel  con- 
tinual normal  anger  or  fear  unless  we  are  con- 
tinuously subject  to  an  external  menace.  But 
sexual  tension,  or  preparedness,  may  arise  in 
the  absence  of  any  external  stimulation,  and 
tends  to  persist  until  relieved  by  some  suitable 
action,  of  which  coitus,  in  the  adult,  is  normally 
the  most  satisfactory  one.  Thus,  in  the  absence 
of  actions  adequate  in  quality  or  in  frequency 
to  discharge  the  libido,  there  may  come  about 
a  state  of  organic  sexual  preparedness  which 
is  chronic.  (This  does  not  mean  that  the  indi- 
vidual need  be  continuously  aware  of  sexual 
desire.)  In  other  words,  a  lack  of  adequate 
sexual  outlet  (and  by  this  is  not  meant  simply 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  47 

abstinence  from  intercourse)  may  result  in  the 
accumulation  in  the  blood  of  abnormal  quanti- 
ties of  thyroid  bodies,  and  perhaps  of  sugar, 
adrenin,  and  other  substances  which  constitute 
also  an  important  part  of  the  state  of  prepared- 
ness for  non-sexual  exertion,  such  as  attack  or 
flight,  and  this  very  likely  is  accompanied  by 
corresponding  changes  in  the  sympathetic- 
autonomic  balance."     {13:  pp.  258-259.) 

Correlated  with  this  increased  metabolic  ac 
tivity,  there  is  an  augmented  sensibility  of  af- 
ferent nerves  and  end-organs,  both  visceral  and 
peripheral  {15:  pp.  37-38),  and  it  is  upon  the 
basis  of  this  organic  instability  and  readiness 
for  reaction  that  we  can  best  explain  the  con- 
duct of  the  pubescent  girl.  Through  all  her 
seeming  inconsistencies,  she  is  seeking  an  outlet 
for  the  great  reproductive  energy  which  has 
thus  taken  possession  of  her  being,  and  this 
motive,  taken  into  consideration  with  the  in- 
creased sensitivity  of  the  afferent  nervous  sys- 
tem and  the  consequent  exaggeration  of  motor 
response,  furnishes  the  key  for  a  right  interpre- 
tation of  her  demeanor. 


48  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

The  first  evidences  of  the  awakening  vita 
sexualis  in  the  young  girl  is  an  inordinate  de- 
sire to  attract  attention  from  the  opposite  sex. 
Who  has  not  observed  the  various  ways  In 
which  the  high  school  girl,  while  not  admitting 
her  motive  even  to  herself,  endeavors  to  draw 
the  regard  of  her  male  companions'?  Incessant 
giggling  seems  to  be  a  veritable  disease  with 
her,  and  although  partly  due  to  her  new  con- 
sciousness of  sexual  differences,  and  the  tension 
of  meeting  social  situations  for  which  she  as 
yet  feels  herself  lacking  in  poise,  it  has  also 
the  ulterior  purpose  of  attracting  the  glances 
of  those  erstwhile  everyday  comrades  who  are 
now  surrounded  by  the  glamour  and  fascination 
of  their  masculinity. 

In  addition  to  these  causes  for  the  epidemic 
of  giggling,  G.  Stanley  Hall  notes  a  more  use- 
ful function,  in  that  it  forms  one  extreme  of  the 
hedonic  scale  whereon  the  emotions  play  up  and 
down,  in  preparation  for  the  joys  and  sorrows 
which  must  be  experienced  later,  in  contact  with 
real  life.  {16:  17-20.)  The  opposite  extreme 
of    the  pain-pleasure  scale  is  apparent  m  the 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  49 

tendency  shown  by  the  adolescent  girl  to  weep 
at  the  least  occasion,  or  even  with  no  occasion 
at  all.  Sometimes  she  seeks  the  solitude  of  her 
room  or  of  some  outdoor  nook  to  indulge  in 
the  luxury  of  tears,  especially  if  their  flow  is 
simply  the  result  of  nervous  fatigue  and  ten- 
sion. More  often  she  uses  them  to  obtain  the 
love  and  sympathy  of  which  she  cannot  have 
too  much  at  this  time,  and  finds  them  a  potent 
means  to  gain  the  affection  which  she  craves  to 
a  degree  almost  abnormal  in  its  intensity. 

Even  more  eloquent  of  her  desire  to  prove 
attractive  in  the  eyes  of  others  is  the  passion- 
ate love  of  dress  which  possesses  the  girl  in 
her  teens.  Watch  the  .girls  on  their  way  to 
school.  The  ''peg-top"  skirts,  full  at  the  hips 
and  narrow  at  the  ankles,  of  some  five  years 
ago  were  replaced  by  the  short  full  skirt,  and 
more  recently  by  long  narrow  lines.  But 
whatever  the  fashion,  the  same  adolescent  tend- 
ency is  exhibited, — happy  the  girl  whose  skirt 
is  shorter  or  narrower  than  any  of  the  daring 
styles  worn  by  her  mates.  "Alice"  blues  and 
''Helen"  pinks  have  yielded  to  "Victory"  red, 


50  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

and  no  one  can  prophesy  what  shade  the  future 
may  bring  forth,  yet  we  may  rest  assured  that 
we  shall  see  it  in  hair  ribbons  and  sport  coats 
the  very  instant  that  it  is  first  rumored  in  the 
latest  magazines.  Instead  of  the  flaunting 
pompadour  we  hear  only  of  the  ''Castle  clip" 
or  "Mary  Pickford  curls";  but  the  young  girl 
has  little  thought  for  past  styles  in  hair-dress- 
ing,— her  one  concern  is  to  see  that  her  newly 
put-up  locks  are  arranged  according  to  the  lat- 
est vogue.  And  so  it  goes,  until  we  wonder 
when  they  ever  find  time  to  look  at  the  books 
they  carry  under  their  arms,  and  whether  there 
is  ever  any  thought  in  their  minds  beyond  the 
fascinating  subject  of  dress. 

It  is  to  be  noted  that  another  motive  may  lurk 
beneath  this  love  of  adornment  than  the  naive 
desire  to  arrest  the  roving  attention  of  the 
male.  With  the  dawn  of  adolescence  comes  a 
new  self -consciousness  as  the  awakening  sexual 
and  social  instincts  induce  comparison  with 
others  and  emphasize  personal "  deficiencies 
hitherto  disregarded.  Psychologists  have 
recognized  that  every  piece  of  apparel 
serves  to  extend  the  personality,  becoming,  as 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  51 

it  were,  an  integral  part  of  the  wearer's  own 
ego.  Hence  the  adolescent  girl  seeks  to  rein- 
force her  self-respect  and  conceal  her  failings 
under  the  gaudy  attire  which  she  assumes. 
Thus  she  accomplishes  a  double  purpose,  win- 
ning the  admiration  of  the  other  sex  at  the  same 
time  that  she  wards  off  social  humiliations, 
which  are  agonizing  to  her  new-born  conscious- 
ness of  self. 

So  deep^is  the  adolescent  longing  for  atten- 
tion and  sympathy,  and  so  keen  the  sorrow  over 
personal  failings  and  criticism,  that  the  girl  is 
prone  to  indulge  in  long  fantasies  wherein  she 
pictures  herself  lying  cold  and  still  in  death 
while  a  throng  of  friends  and  relatives  laud 
her  to  the  skies  as  they  mourn  her  untimely  de- 
mise. Oversensitive  to  the  least  rebuke,  which 
she  interprets  as  a  symbol  of  lost  affection,  she 
also  thinks  of  deith  as  a  fitting  revenge  upon 
parents  or  others  in  authurily  who  hav\,  denied 
her  wishes,  or  treated  her  harshly.  If  any 
proof  were  needed  to  demonstrate  the  fact  that 
at  this  time  of  life  the  death  wish  is  most  for- 
eign to  the  whole  organic  makeup,  which  is 
never  more  flushed  with  the  joy  of  living,  the 


52  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

very  attitude  of  the  girl  in  these  reveries  would 
furnish  it.  Never  does  she  conceive  of  death 
as  the  absolute  end  of  all  things.  Instead  she 
always  pictures  her  feelings  as  she  stands  apart 
and  sees  the  mourners  gathered  around  her 
body  and  hears  their  regret  and  praise.  She 
only  dreams  of  what  would  happen  if  she  were 
dead.     {16:  p.  10.) 

When  the  adolescent  girl  really  does  commit 
suicide,  and  occasionally  she  does  do  it  in  more 
than  a  day-dreaming  way,  it  is  because  she  has 
developed  a  pathological  state  of  mind  which 
only  the  psychoanalyst  can  understand.  At 
the  period  of  adolescence,  the  necessity  of 
transferring  the  libido  from  infantile  fixations 
to  goals  which  have  a  wider  social  relationship 
becomes  insistent.  With  normal  individuals, 
this  transference  is  made  with  little  apparent 
struggle,  but  with  neurotics,  there  may  be  a 
flight  from  the  too  stern  realities  of  adult  ex- 
istence, and  a  seeking  for  refuge  in  insane  de- 
lusions and  neurotic  obsessions,  or  even  in  an 
attempt  to  seek  a  pleasant  oblivion  like  that  of 
the  pre-natal  state  in  death.  Thus,  the  very 
will  to  live,  unable  to  make  proper  adjustments, 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  53 

and  with  its  energy  turned  in  upon  itself,  tor- 
ments the  soul  in  its  futile  attempts  to  find 
expression  until  it  succeeds  in  the  utter  nega- 
tion of  its  own  purposive  impulse. 

After  the  first  general  reaction  toward  any 
member  of  the  male  sex,  there  follows  a  period 
in  the  career  of  the  adolescent  girl  when  she 
begins  to  exercise  her  powers  of  discrimination 
to  a  slight  extent,  and  to  evince  a  preference 
for  some  particular  individual  among  her  ac- 
quaintances. Ordinarily,  this  choice  depends 
upon  certain  physical  traits  which  become  veri- 
table erotic  fetishes  upon  which  the  young  girl 
lavishes  her  devotion,  while  the  personality 
below  them  is  a  minor  detail.  G.  Stanley  Hall 
(16),  Slaughter  (28),  Smith  (29) ^  and  others, 
have  noticed  this  fetishistic  tendency,  and  com- 
mented upon  its  common  occurrence  and  domi- 
nating influence  in  the  girl's  life.  It  is  note- 
worthy that  the  various  characteristics  which 
are  thus  idolized  are  all  more  or  less  intimately 
connected  with  sex  from  a  genetic  viewpoint, — 
for  Scharlieb  and  Sibley  have  remarked  (26) ^ 
as  have  other  writers,  that  the  hair,  eyes,  com- 
plexion, etc.,  grow  brighter  or  clearer  at  puber- 


54  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

ty,  while  Holmes  {18)  has  emphasized  the  fact 
that  the  voice,  laugh,  etc.,  had  their  origin  in 
the  mate  calls  of  our  animal  forefathers.  It  is 
safe  to  conclude  that  concealment  of  the  pri- 
mary organs  of  reproduction  has  resulted  in  the 
focussing  of  the  attention  upon  the  secondary 
sexual  characters,  so  that  these  have  become  as 
stimulating  to  the  senses  as  were  the  genitalia 
proper  when  our  ancestors  first  assumed  the 
upright  position  that  brought  them  into  promi- 
nence. 

Quite  as  pronounced  as  the  fixation  on  erotic 
fetishes  is  the  ideal  love  fo^  sm  older  person 
which  is  almost  invariably  a  part  of  every  girl's 
development.  This,  too,  has  been  remarked  by 
a  large  number  of  authors, — Kohl  (20)  and 
Slaughter  {28)  having  given  it  especial  atten- 
tion. '  The  psychoanalysts  regard  it  as  a  nor- 
mal stage  in  the  transition  of  the  libido  from  its 
fixation  on  the  parent  to  its  final  goal  outside 
the  family  group.  To  what  lengths  this  infatu- 
ation for  an  elder  person  can  carry  an  impul- 
sive girl,  is  beautifully  illustrated  in  the  auto- 
biography of  a  prominent  woman  writer  of  the 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  55 

day,  published   anonymously  under   the   title 
*  *  Me :  A  Book  of  Remembrance. "    (32.) 

After  several  interesting  adventures,  the  heroine, 
an  18  year  old  Canadian  girl,  ' '  picks  up  "  a  travelling 
acquaintance  who  occupies  her  thoughts  thenceforth. 
By  the  time  he  has  rendered  her  timely  assistance  in 
her  endeavor  to  gain  a  livelihood,  she  is  desperately 
in  love  with  him,  and  begs  him  to  say  that  her  affec- 
tion is  returned.  She  bends  all  her  energies  to  living 
up  to  what  she  believes  to  be  his  idea  of  her. 

"I  deliberately  blinded  myself  to  every  flaw  in 
Roger,"  she  states.  "His  selfishness  and  tyranny  I 
passed  over.  It  was  enough  for  me  that  he  descended 
into  my  life  for  a  few  days  each  month  and  permitted 
himself  to  be  worshipped  like  a  God.  .  .  .  Lolly  called 
my  love  for  him  an  infatuation.  ...  She  said  that  I 
was  a  hero-worshipper,  and  made  impossible  ideals  of 
unworthy  clay  and  endowed  them  with  fictitious  traits 
and  virtUiCS.  She  said  girls  like  me  never  really  loved 
a  man  at  all.  We  loved  an  image  we  ourselves  cre- 
ated."   " 

Whether  it  is  a  real  love  or  no,  under  its  impulsion 
Nora  is  spurred  on  to  do  more  than  one  act  which  she 
regrets  bitterly  afterward.  Because  Roger  seems  loath 
to  declare  his  affection,  she  feels  that  her  sentiments 
are  not  returned,  and  in  wounded  pride,  takes  pleasure 
in  becoming  engaged  to  other  men, — no  less  than  three 
simultaneously, — in  order  that  she  may  prove  the  at- 
tractiveness which  he  thus  treats  so  slightingly.  Only 
when  she  makes  the  heart-breaking  discovery  that  her 


56  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

idol  is  not  only  a  married  man  but  one  of  notoriously 
bad  morals  as  well,  does  she  attempt  to  control  her 
madness,  and  instead  of  accompanying  Roger  on  a  trip 
to  his  hunting  lodge,  begins  her  life  anew  in  devotion 
to  her  chosen  profession. 

Perhaps  the  best  summary  of  this  love  of  the 
young  girl  for  a  man  much  older  than  herself, 
although  it  neglects  the  psychoanalytic  inter- 
pretation, is  to  be  found  in  these  words  of 
Slaughter's: 

*' There  is  in  the  love  of  the  older  person  a 
larger  element  of  respect  and  the  mystery  of 
complete  development,  joined  as  a  rule  with 
sympathetic  and  gracious  treatment.  The  situ- 
ation is  often  one  that  gives  opportunity  for 
beneficial  influence  and  guidance ;  the  older  per- 
son must  not  be  flattered  too  much  by  adoles- 
cent affection;  it  is  a  passing  phase  and  in- 
volves the  projection  of  an  ideal  to  which  the 
older  person  may,  in  reality,  only  remotely  ap- 
proximate. Now  and  then,  an  adult  will  be 
found  so  deficient  in  either  intellect  or  character 
as  to  treat  the  matter  seriously  or  selfishly. 
Mating  of  this  sort  almost  always  faces  dis- 
aster."   {28:  p.  38.) 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  57 

The  indefinite  feeling  of  attraction  which  the 
adolescent  girl  at  first  feels  toward  the  opposite 
sex,  is  often  replaced,  a  little  later,  by  a  state 
in  which  a  very  conscious  element  of  physical 
sexual  desire  predominates.  That  there  is  vast 
individual  variation  in  regard  to  this,  is  obvious 
to  anyone  who  has  observed  the  adolescent  girl 
even  in  a  cursory  and  idly  speculative  fashion. 
'■^The  reason  for  this  wide  variation,  as  Blair 
Bell  (1)  has  shown,  is  to  be  found  in  the  metab- 
olism of  the  ductless  glands.  This  endocritic 
theory,  while  undoubtedly  correct,  does  not  ex- 
plain the  absence  of  a  similarly  broad  degree  of 
difference  in  the  case  of  individuals  of  the  male 
sex.  In  order  to  understand  this  phenomenon 
more  clearly,  we  must  seek  the  aid  of  genetic 
psychology,  and  it  is  just  there  that  we  find 
further  facts  which  furnish  us  with  an  adequate 
explanation. 

In  the  beginning  of  human  life  as  such,  man, 
like  all  other  animals,  had  a  definite  mating  sea- 
son, of  which  traces  remain  even  to  this  day. 
In  proof  of  this  statement,  Havelock  Ellis 
quotes  examples  of  the  outbreaks  of  venery 
that  occur  among  the  primitive  tribes  of  Africa 


58  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

and  Australia  in  the  spring  and  fall,  and  among 
the  Eskimos  at  the  end  of  the  long  winter  dur- 
ing which  they  are  devoid  of  sexual  desire.  (9.) 
Other  evidences  are  found  in  the  May  Day  and 
Harvest  festivals  of  the  rural  British  popula- 
tion and  in  the  holiday  celebrations  of  the  Euro- 
pean peasantry  at  these  times  of  the  year, 
which  tend  to  assume  orgiastic  characters.  The 
Chinese  holiday  called  "Walking  on  the 
Green*'  is  the  survival  of  the  old  spring-time 
mating  ceremony.  A  less  obvious  trace  of  the 
old  periodic  function  of  sex  is  the  favoritism 
accorded  to  June  weddings,  which  have  become 
traditional,  and  the  universally  prevalent  out- 
break of  "spring  fever,"  which  owes  its  origin 
to  the  restlessness  created  by  sex  tension. 

As  Corin  points  out  (6),  when  the  struggle 
for  existence  became  less  acute  with  man's  in- 
creasing mastery  of  his  environment,  the  neces- 
sity for  a  definite  breeding  season  passed  away, 
and  the  human  species  lost  the  pairing  season 
which  natural  selection  has  generally  preserved 
throughout  the  animal  kingdom.  The  bi-pedal 
position,  the  loss  of  hairy  covering,  the  inti- 
mate throwing  aside  of  garments  and  the  hud- 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  59 

dling  together  in  the  cave-dwellings,  and  the  use 
of  the  hand  for  purposes  of  stimulating  desire, 
all  tended  to  focus  the  attention  on  the  organs  of 
reproduction,  and  to  emphasize  sexuality  as  it 
had  never  before  been  emphasized.  (17.)  The 
vast  fund  of  energy  which  man  had  developed 
in  his  lomg  battle  with  the  environment  and  with 
other  men,  now  turned  to  the  sex  function  as  an 
easily  accessible  and  pleasant  outlet,  and  he 
demanded  that  his  mate  give  up  all  vestige  of 
her  old  periodicity  of  function,  in  order  that 
he  might  satisfy  his  new  passion. 

It  was  at  this  time  that  woman  lost  her  place 
as  the  free  and  equal  comrade  of  man.  Previ- 
ously, her  share  in  social  progress  had  been  as 
great  as  his,  for  as  Mason  has  shown  (24),  while 
he  had  been  developing  militarism,  she  had  been 
initiating  and  perfecting  industrialism.  Now, 
however,  man  came  to  see  in  woman,  in  place  of 
the  co-worker,  an  object  wherewith  to  gratify 
his  lust.  There  was  produced,  by  the  slow 
process  of  natural  selection,  a  race  of  wives  too 
weak  to  resist  such  treatment,  together  with  a 
second  type  who  came  to  possess  the  ability  to 
feel  the  sexual  impulse  at  all  times,  with  only 


60  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

traces  of  the  old  periodicity.  Thus  there  came 
into  being  the  erotic  and  maternal  types  dis- 
tinguished by  Ellis  (8),  Forel  (10),  and  others, 
with  all  degrees  between  these  two  extremes. 
It  is  an  undisputed  fact  that  these  types  exist 
to-day,  and  it  is  herein  that  we  have  an  explana- 
tion for  the  varying  degrees  of  sensuality  which 
are  characteristic  of  the  adolescent  girl  as  of 
the  adult  woman. 

The  adolescent  girl  who  is  most  deficient  in 
the  sexual  side  of  her  life  may  complete  her 
existence  without  feeling  any  noticeable  sexual 
desire ;  indeed,  physicians  report  that  they  find 
a  large  number  of  cases  in  which  female  pa- 
tients are  utterly  unable  to  experience  any  such 
feeling,  and  hence  find  their  marriage  vows  ex- 
tremely irksome.  On  the  other  hand,  there  are 
an  equal  number  of  exceedingly  passionate  wo- 
men, who  felt  the  physical  sensations  of  sexual 
longing  more  or  less  spontaneously  at  some 
time  during  their  adolescence. 

This  sensual  craving  is  not  manifested  in  the 
same  manner  in  all  cases,  but  may  appear  in 
any  one  of  several  forms.  It  is  usually  very 
much  intensified  just  preceding  menstruation. 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  61 

and  again  after  the  third  day  or  so  from  the 
beginning  of  that  function,  becoming  relatively- 
quiescent  midway  between  two  menstrual 
periods.  {31.)  Some  girls  say  that  it  becomes 
so  strong  at  this  time  as  to  prove  a  temptation 
to  masturbation  or  to  illicit  intercourse.  Often 
this  feeling  is  first  aroused  by  an  accidental 
touch,  for  touch  is  intimately  connected  with 
the  reproductive  function.  (14.)  One  girl  states 
that  she  experienced  her  first  sensual  thrill 
when  her  bosom  touched  that  of  her  partner 
during  the  dance ;  another  that  her  first  sensa- 
tion of  this  kind  was  received  as  she  clung  to 
her  escort  in  an  agony  of  terror ;  and  many  are 
thus  awakened  by  the  kisses  and  caresses  of 
their  lovers.  Most  often,  the  waking  conscious- 
ness succeeds  in  inhibiting  a  sensation  that  it 
has  been  taught  to  regard  as  sinful,  and  it  is 
carried  over  into  the  dream  life,  where  such 
vigilant  censorship  is  impossible,  due  to  the 
relaxation  of  the  higher  nerve  centers  in  sleep. 
Until  the  psychoanalytic  practice  came  into 
being,  the  dream-life  of  the  adolescent  girl,  like 
that  of  everyone  else,  was  in  large  measure  a 
sealed  book,  but  with  the  aid  of  careful  analyses 


62  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

made  by  Freud,  Jung  and  their  followers,  we 
can  at  least  formulate  some  general  statements 
which  will  hold  true  in  the  majority  of  in- 
stances. To  Dr.  Sigmund  Freud  belongs  the 
credit  for  giving  us  a  key  for  the  interpreta- 
tion of  dreams,  a  contribution  as  significant  for 
the  proper  understanding  of  the  psychic  life 
of  the  adolescent  girl  as  it  has  been  in  the  treat- 
ment of  neurotic  cases,  in  which  connection  it 
was  evolved.  Stated  in  the  briefest  possible 
terms,  the  Freudian  theory  holds  that  the 
dream  is  the  fanciful  fulfilment  of  a  suppressed 
wish,  which  the  waking  consciousness  will  not 
admit  into  its  ken,  but  which  escapes  from  this 
inhibitive  influence  or  censorship,  during  sleep, 
and  runs  riot  in  the  dream  life. 

It  is  hardly  surprising  that  the  unconscious 
sexual  desires  form  a  large  part  of  this  sup- 
pressed impulsive  energy,  for  their  normal  sat- 
isfaction is  very  often  incompatible  with  estab- 
lished social  standards,  and  the  dictates  of  con- 
scious morality  even  go  so  far  as  to  forbid  the 
slightest  thought  of  their  existence.  So  deeply, 
indeed,  is  the  necessity  of  denying  such  wishes 
impressed  upon  the  whole  psyche,  that  very 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  63 

often  the  sexual  meaning  of  the  dream  itself  has 
to  be  cunningly  hidden  in  order  to  escape  the 
vigilance  of  the  censor,  so  that  there  must  be 
distinguished  in  the  dream  content  a  whole  se- 
ries of  symbolisms  which  have  received  an  erot- 
ic meaning  through  the  old  phallic  ceremonials 
of  ancient  religions,  although  their  sexual  mean- 
ing has  long  since  been  obliterated  from  the 
conscious  memory  of  the  race,  and  persists  only 
in  the  submerged  levels  of  the  unconscious 
psyche.    {5:11.) 

This  suppression  of  any  crudely  sexual  de- 
sire, even  in  dreams,  is  especially  typical  of 
women,  because  they  have  been  taught  for  cen- 
turies that  passion  was  the  unique  possession 
of  the  male  organism,  while  the  female  merely 
submitted  to  this  sinful  act  in  order  to  insure 
the  birth  of  offspring.  Thus  it  has  happened 
that  former  students  of  sex  psychology  have 
noted  the  sexual  dreams  of  the  man  who  is 
practicing  continence,  but  have  been  strangely 
silent  as  to  the  experiences  of  wom.en  along 
this  line.  The  psychoanalysts,  however,  have 
broken  through  this  barrier  of  delicate  reserve, 
and  have  described  symbolic  dreams  of  purely 


64  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

sexual  character  which  they  have  brought  to 
light  in  their  treatments  of  nervous  diseases. 
An  especially  good  example  of  such  a  dream  in 
the  case  of  an  adolescent  girl  who  came  to  him 
for  treatment  is  described  by  Dr.  Frink  in 
his  latest  book.    {13:  452.) 

Miss  Sunderland,  the  patient  in  question,  dreamed 
"that  she  was  struiggling  with  a  large,  long-nosed, 
gray  dog  which  was  trying  to  bite  her,  while  she  en- 
deavored to  prevent  it  by  holding  its  mouth  shut  with 
her  hands.  The  dog  finally  did  bite  her  somewhere  in 
the  thigh.  She  saw  a  little  blood  flow  from  the  wound, 
and  then  she  awakened,  terrified.  This  is  evidently  a 
sexual  dream.  Its  symbolism  is  very  typical.  Young 
girls  are  apt  to  conceive  of  sexuality  as  something 
animal-like  or  violent.  When,  therefore,  a  girl  dreams 
of  some  violent  attack  or  assault,  one  can  feel  assured 
that  she  has  in  mind  something  sexual.  And  when 
this  attack  results  in  the  shedding  of  blood  and  is  fol- 
lowed by  swelling  of  the  body,  the  analogy  to  deflora- 
tion and  a  resulting  pregnancy  is  so  striking  that  there 
need  be  little  doubt  as  to  what  the  dream  means. ' '  In 
this  case,  further  analysis  showed  that  the  dog  of  the 
dream  represented  a  young  man  with  whom  Miss  Sun- 
derland was  really  in  love,  though  hesitating  to  admit 
it,  and  whom  she  finally  married. 

An  elaborate  set  of  the  sexual  symbolisms 
which  most  frequently  occur  in  these  erotic 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  65 

dreams  has  been  worked  out  by  the  psycho- 
analysts, and  is  probably  more  or  less  univer- 
sally applicable,  although  it  is  far  from  being 
the  all-inclusive  content  of  the  dream  psyche 
which  was  at  first  claimed  for  it,  as  further 
analytic  work  with  cases  of  war  shock  has 
shown.  Herbert  Silberer,  too,  has  emphasized 
the  multiple  factors  of  dream  interpretation, 
and  concludes  that  its  symbolisms  not  only  veil 
a  suppressed  wish  of  lowly  somatic  origin,  but 
also  express  the  idealistic  strivings  of  man- 
kind to  sublimate  this  unconscious  energy  into 
forms  which  shall  be  higher  and  more  beneficial 
to  the  individual  and  to  society,  just  as  the  al- 
chemists of  old  tried  to  transmute  the  baser 
metals  into  pure  gold.  (27.)  That  this  process 
is  often  very  beautifully  carried  out  will  be 
demonstrated  in  a  succeeding  chapter. 

It  has  been  the  habit  of  psychologists  to  deal 
with  the  sexual  dream  of  the  girl  as  entirely 
symbolical,  if  at  all  occurrent,  for  the  assump- 
tion is  made  that  she  never  experiences  the  defi- 
nitely sexual  dreams  of  her  brother.  Exchange 
of  confidences  with  other  girls  has  justified  the 
conclusion  that  this  is  an  entirely  erroneous  im- 


66  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

pression,  for  the  adolescent  girl  very  often 
dreams  of  ardent  love-making  with  some  man 
of  her  acquaintance,  or  even  with  someone  who 
is  an  entire  stranger  to  her  waking  thoughts. 
Often  these  dreams  end  with  the  fantasy  of  sex- 
ual intercourse,  and  even  result  in  a  complete 
sexual  orgasm.  Day-dreams,  too,  may  take  on 
a  specifically  erotic  character,  particularly  in 
the  case  of  girls  who  have  been  involved  in 
more  or  less  ardent  love  affairs,  and  who  are 
temporarily  forced  to  forego  the  accustomed 
caresses  of  the  lover. 

There  is  one  other  aspect  of  the  sexual  in- 
stinct in  the  adolescent  girl  which  has  received 
all  too  little  attention  except  as  it  has  been  seen 
in  manifestations  so  extreme  as  to  be  pathologi- 
cal in  nature.  Intimately  connected  with  the 
emotion  of  sex,  as  the  psychoanalysts  have- 
noted  in  their  studies  of  neurotics,  is  the  senti- 
ment of  fear.  In  woman,  the  fear  element  is 
especially  predominant,  not  only  because  the 
results  of  sexual  intercourse  are  more  involved 
in  her  case,  but  because  for  the  inexperienced, 
at  least,  a  vast  body  of  tradition  emphasizes 
this  element, — the  fear  of  defloration  pains,  the 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  67 

horror  of  passion  which  she  has  often  been 
taught  is  unwomanly,  and  in  cases  of  extreme 
ignorance,  dread  of  the  unknown  processes  of 
the  sexual  act  itself. 

In  the  face  of  so  many  terrors  it  is  to  be 
wondered  that  almost  every  girl  dreams  of  mar- 
riage, and  more  especially  is  it  astonishing  that 
so  many  defy  conventional  morality  to  become 
mothers  outside  the  sanction  of  wedlock.  In 
order  to  understand  this  apparent  courage,  we 
must  recollect  the  masochistic  tendency  which 
is  to  some  extent  a  part  of  the  female  sexual 
nature.  Throughout  a  long  biological  history, 
man  has  been  the  aggressor  to  whose  advances 
woman  has  passively  yielded  her  charms;  he 
has  been  the  wooer,  she  the  wooed.  And  this 
long  accustomed  compliance  with  the  desires  of 
the  more  ardent  male,  necessary  for  the  con- 
tinuation of  the  race,  has  become  the  natural 
heritage  of  woman,  so  that  the  impulse  to  yield 
to  her  mate,  lawful  or  otherwise,  is  stronger 
than  all  the  fears  of  present  or  future  pains 
which  may  result.  Thus  it  is  that  we  see  in 
our  present  social  system  the  wife  who  is  faith- 
ful to  a  brutal  husband  and  the  girl  who  is  a 


68  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

social  outcast,  both  equally  anomalous  until  we 
recognize  that  the  masochistic  sacrifice  of  self 
is  a  fundamental  concomitant  of  the  sexual  life 
of  womankind. 

These  generalizations  concerning  the  sexual 
instinct  of  the  adolescent  girl  are  more  forcibly 
illustrated  by  some  of  the  concrete  examples 
which  led  to  their  formulation.  Except  for  the 
description  of  Mary  MacLane,  which  is  drawn 
from  her  books,  the  exact  words  of  the  girls  are 
quoted.  Nearly  all  the  girls  who  have  been 
under  close  observation  are  the  college  and  uni- 
versity type,  and  this  makes  their  cases  the 
more  significant  when  it  is  remembered  that 
many  of  them  have  been  brought  up  under  the 
strictest  possible  code  of  repression,  so  that 
for  a  long  time  their  sex  life  was  wholly  a  mat- 
ter of  instinctive  response,  unguided  by  any 
definite  information.  It  is  my  impression, 
gathered  during  two  summers'  work  with  fac- 
tory girls  (not  in  social  welfare,  but  as  co- 
worker with  them,  so  that  the  observations  were 
perfectly  free  and  natural),  that  with  girls  of 
this  class  the  awakening  of  physical  sexual  de- 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  69 

sire  is  earlier  and  more  intense.  This  is  due 
partly  to  their  different  environment  in  which 
the  sexual  side  of  life  receives  more  emphasis, 
and  partly  to  the  fact  that  they  lack  adequate 
means  for  sublimating  their  biological  energy 
into  intellectual  and  artistic  effort. 

Maiy  MacLane  {21;  22;  23)  carries  her  sensualism 
over  into  every  other  sensory  domain,  so  that  the  red 
line  of  the  sky  at  sunset  becomes  a  symbol  of  the  pas- 
sion which  shakes  her  body,  the  feel  of  her  garments 
and  even  the  prosaic  eating  of  food  becomes  tinged 
with  erotic  pleasure.  But  far  from  being  contented 
with  these  symbolic  and  substitute  erethisms,  she  longs 
most  intensely  for  the  hour  which  shall  give  her  the 
supreme  satisfaction  of  physical  love  in  its  intensest 
form,  and  all  her  day-dreams  center  upon  this  supreme 
height  of  her  ambitions.  Her  dream-partner  is  vis- 
ualized as  a  gray-eyed,  gentlemanly  devil,  who  may 
ruin  her  soul  if  he  will,  so  long  as  he  gives  her  the 
supreme  satisfaction  which  her  being  craves.  Thus 
all  her  desires  converge  to  the  moment  in  which  she 
can  experience  in  her  own  person  that  acme  of  pleas- 
ure, sexual  love.  One  does  not  wonder  that  when  she 
writes  her  third  book,  Mary  confesses  that  she  has 
never  found  her  dreams  realized,  for  such  elaborate 
visions,  whatever  their  theme,  could  scarcely  hope  to 
find  their  counterpart  in  the  world  of  reality.  It  is 
noteworthy  that  in  this  last  volume,  too,  she  has  re- 
placed her  first  dreams  of  a  lover  with  quite  as  pas- 


70  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

sionate  a  fantasy  of  little  dream-children  whom  she 
holds  in  her  arms,  and  warms  against  her  breast. 

Reports  of  Adolescent  Girls* 

Case  I.  My  ideal  of  life  after  college  is  marriage, 
with  opportunity  to  continu,e  work  in  designing.  My 
plans  and  interests  have  broadened  with  my  increase 
in  knowledge.  For  instance,  before  entering  high 
school  my  highest  ambition  was  to  be  a  public  speaker 
and  wear  a  black  spangled  gown,  for  I  had  once  seen 
a  reader  so  dressed  and  greatly  admired  her. 

Quality  of  work  is  lowered  during  the  first  part  of 
menstruation,  increased  during  the  last  part.  Marked 
mental  depression  during  first  two  days  of  menstrua- 
tion, followed  by  an  opposite  mental  attitude.  Lan- 
guid for  first  two  or  three  days,  then  emotions  greatly 
increased  in  intensity,  desire  to  dance,  etc.  Yes,  I 
know  that  a  girl  who  has  had  no  actual  sexual  experi- 
ence can  have  dreams  of  that  nature.  In  myself,  they 
occur  after  a  dance,  or  any  occasion  where  there  has 
been  unusual  sexual  stimulus.  I  have  spring  fever, 
too,  which  is  similar  to  the  emotion  before  and  after 
menstruation.    It  seems  to  be  due  to  an  accumulation 

*  These  reports  were  obtained  from  friends,  and  girls  who 
wrote  me  at  the  request  of  mutual  friends,  in  answer  to  very 
plain  questionnaires.  I  have  given  the  selected  answers  ver- 
batim, at  the  risk  of  reproducing  irrelevant  material,  because 
they  afford  such  remarkable  insight  into  the  mind  of  the 
adolescent  girl.  The  questions  concerned  day-dreams,  erotic 
dreams,  experience  at  menstruation,  ideals  for  the  future,  re- 
ligious beliefs,  etc.  The  last  question  (on  religious  beliefs) 
has  no  bearing  on  the  subject  of  this  chapter,  therefore  the 
answers  to  it  are  omitted  from  the  reports. 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  71 

of  superfluous  energy,  and  I  usually  indulge  in  some 
strenuous  exercise. 

Case  II.  When  I  entered  high  school,  I  had  no  plans 
further  than  going  to  college  so  as  to  have  some  good 
times,  living  in  a  dormitory.  Then,  towards  the  end 
of  my  course,  I  realized  that  after  college  one  earned 
one's  own  living.  I  thought  it  would  be  delightful  to 
be  a  librarian,  for  one  who  loved  books  must  be  happy 
if  always  with  them.  But  after  applying  for  entrance 
at  Simmons,  I  solemnly  decided  that  I'd  better  not 
become  a  librarian,  since  all  I  knew  of  that  species 
were  withered  old  maids.  I  then  thought  it  would  be 
so  satisfying  to  have  taught  school,  and  be  able  to  say 
of  great  men,  "I  used  to  teach  him."  After  a  few 
years  of  teaching  I  wanted  something  tangible  as  a 
result  of  my  work,  so  I  decided  to  become  a  trained 
nurse.  Only  one  friend  approved  this  idea.  Finally 
in  selfish  desperation,  I  planned  on  a  delightful  time 
studying  German  at  college.  Then  I  was  surprfeed  to 
find  my  dreams  realized  in  the  science  of  Sociology. 

For  a  while  the  fascination  of  Psychology  lured  me 
away  from  Sociology,  but  I  gave  that  up  as  I  had 
given  up  nursing.  Jones'  book  on  Psychoanalysis 
made  the  work  of  an  alienist  the  most  attractive  that 
could  be  done,  just  as  Alice  Freeman's  life  and  Jane 
Addams'  Twenty  Years  at  Hull  Mouse  made  an  unsel- 
fish life  seem  attractive. 

I  am  always  depressed  at  the  menstrual  period. 
Consider  myself  a  failure,  unworthy  of  success.  The 
third  day  I  have  always  been  very  lonely,  and  strongly 
attracted  by  the  idea  of  masturbation.    Still,  I  always 


72  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

feel  with  unusual  strength  the  sanctity  of  sex  at  this 
time,  so  that  I  never  experience  any  rebellion  against 
the  occurrence  of  menstruation. 

When  I  was  seven,  my  father  told  me  that  the  baby 
sister  came  out  of  mother,  not  out  of  the  doctor's 
bag.  .  .  .  Two  years  ago,  Dr.  X said  some- 
thing about  a  woman  who  was  trying  to  appear  young. 
He  knew  that  she  was  older  than  she  said,  because  he 
had  known  her  for  years.  Besides,  she  had  had  a 
Cesarean  operation  when  her  child  was  bom.  Did  I 
know  what  that  was  ?  No  ?  Well,  right  then  I  learned 
that  babies  were  not  commonly  bom  through  the  navel. 
From  Havelock  Ellis  I  learned  all  else  there  was  to 
know  about  sex.  It  was  marvellously  interesting.  For 
the  first  time  in  my  life,  I  became  curious,  but  Ellis 
went  into  so  much  detail  that  my  curiosity  was  satis- 
fied before  it  was  aroused,  almost.  I  earnestly  hoped 
I  was  normal  sexually,  and  despised  women  who  were 
not.  Marriage  seemed  a  much  more  definite  thing, 
and  more  interesting,  really  a  career  m  itself.  Men 
now  seemed  different  from  women.  They  all  appealed 
to  me  rather  strongly  for  a  time,  but  gradually  I  was 
forced  to  find  sublimation,  as  I  found  that  I  did  not 
appeal  to  them  any  more  than  I  ever  had.  My  fond- 
ness for  children  ran  a  parallel  course  with  my  desire 
for  masculinity. 

In  my  nineteenth  year,  I  remember  being  much 
shocked  at  my  moral  depravity  because  of  two  dreams. 
In  the  first,  I  was  sitting  on  a  beam  in  the  bam  with 
a  grammar  school  boy  pal,  when  I  felt  very  much 
elated  in  a  peculiar  manner  because  my  bare  foot 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  73 

touched  his,  and  we  swung  our  feet  together  a  moment 
without  speaking.  Not  many  nights  later,  I  dreamed 
I  went  down  through  a  hole  in  the  ground,  as  did 
Alice  in  Wonderland,  till  I  came  to  a  beautiful  gar- 
den. Here,  a  radiant  man,  naked,  embraced  me  with 
his  hands  and  feet  so  that  we  seemed  welded  together. 
After  reading  Havelock  Ellis  I  dreamed  several  times 
of  having  sexual  intercourse. 

I  used  to  think  it  was  simply  pre-ordained  that 
somewhere  in  this  big  world  there  was  a  man  whom 
I  should  meet  in  the  far  future,  who  would  be  the 
perfect  complement  of  myself.  We  would  love  each 
other  when  we  met,  and  until  death.  I  never  would 
do  any  cooking,  so  he  must  be  willing  to  eat  raw  food. 
My  caxeer  would  not  be  interrupted.  We  would  have 
fifteen  children,  who  would  take  care  of  each  other. 
Now,  I  have  been  seriously  looking  at  every  man  I 
meet,  but  I  do  not  find  him.  I  realize  that  I  may 
never  find  him.  But  it  does  not  mean  so  much  to  me 
as  I  used  to  suppose  that  it  would.  It  means  simply 
a  choice  between  a  narrow  and  a  wide  circle  of  inter- 
est. For  children  do  not  take  care  of  each  other.  And 
I  don 't  think  I  'd  like  to  eat  raw  food  myself.  My  day- 
dreams are  of  success,  and  of  self-sacrifice.  I  have 
never  dreamed  of  lovers  or  of  love  in  them. 

Ca^e  III.  During  menstruation  I  am  weaker  physi- 
cally and  overcome  with  weariness  for  a  day,  some- 
times, but  I  do  not  notice  any  tendency  to  be  irra- 
tional, excitable  or  morbid.  I  am  simply  depressed 
somewhat  by  physical  languor  and  sometimes  pain. 
I  have  attacks  of  spring  fever,  but  have  not  noticed 


74  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

any  similar  difference  near  the  menstrual  period.  I 
should  say  my  spring  fever  was  attacks  of  the  blues, 
due  to  nervous  fatigue,  discouragement  in  my  work, 
and  desire  for  masculine  company,  to  put  it  mildly. 
I  find  relief  in  physical  exercise,  or  work,  or  writing, 
usually  to  someone. 

At  the  age  of  ten,  my  mother  explained  most  of 
the  physiological  phenomena  concerned  with  repro- 
duction, and  showed  me  the  big  colored  illustrations 
in  my  grandfather's  medical  books.  I  was  assured 
in  beautiful  language  that  it  was  all  very  lovely, 
but  it  took  me  some  years  to  have  any  respect  for 
sexual  intercourse  or  see  anything  but  pain  and  horror 
in  childbirth.  At  present,  though  I  love  children,  I 
do  not  like  the  idea  of  being  tied  down.  If  I  could 
combine  my  ambitious  with  married  life  and  mother- 
hood without  hurting  either,  I  should  be  most  happy. 
I  cannot  tell  which  call  will  prove  the  strongest, 
but  at  present  it  seems  that  art  is. 

I  can  not  recall  definitely  any  erotic  dream,  though 
I  often  have  them.  They  are  usually  vague,  uncon- 
ventional, but  not  naughty.  Complete  sexual  experi- 
ence is  not  necessary  for  erotic  dreaming.  My  sexual 
experience  has  been  all  but  complete,  and  I  have 
dreamed  only  a  small  part  of  it,  such  as  kissing, 
physical  contact  and  pressure,  but  other  girls  of  my 
acquaintance  have  dreamed  all  this  and  more. 

When  I  was  about  thirteen,  my  day-dreams  were 
romantic  adventures  with  handsome  men.  With  the 
more  picturesque  events,  such  as  narrow  escapes  from 
being  murdered  by  brigands,  etc.,  I  imagined  all  the 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  75 

ramifications  of  sexual  experience.  This  last  I  do  to- 
day, but  with  added  details  taken  from  real  life. 
Books  do  not  tell  us  so  much  of  the  actual  workings 
of  such  things.  Nowadays,  my  day-dreams  are  less 
romantic,  and  get  down  to  business.  I  imagine  my- 
self b^ing  charmingly  caressed  and  supported  (bodily, 
of  course).  I  am  delightfully  passive  and  dependent 
in  some  strong  man's  arms,  but  I  also  imagine  living 
a  humdrum  existence  with  him.  A  very  common 
dream  is  partly  memory  amplified.  I  go  over  in  my 
mind  two  or  three  love  affairs,  adding  and  guessing 
what  might  have  happened,  and  ending  up  with  a 
feeling  of  relief  that  I  was  not  carried  off  my  feet 
and  tied  up  with  a  wretched,  unsuited  existence. 

Case  IV.  My  plans  for  the  future  have  changed 
a  great  deal  since  I  entered  high  school.  Then,  my 
ambition  was  to  become  an  actress.  I  had  no  great 
appreciation  of  dramatic  art,  but  the  excitement  and 
glamour  of  the  stage  appealed  to  me  strongly.  In 
my  Junior  year  of  high,  a  very  wonderful  English 
teacher  made  me  feel  that  a  life  of  service  was  more 
important  than  anything  else.  I  adopted  the  idea 
of  being  "an  angel  of  the  slums,"  and  felt  that  in 
order  to  gain  my  life  I  must  first  lose  it.  This  ideal 
remained  with  me  in  a  somewhat  modified  form  until 
my  junior  year  in  college,  when  the  fascination  of 
Zoology  decided  me  to  become  a  doctor.  I  do  not 
know  how  I  shall  find  the  life  of  service,  even  yet. 

I  have  never  noticed  any  marked  difference  in  the 
quality  of  my  work  at  menstruation.  It  does  not 
seem  to  affect  my  mental  or  physical  condition  in  the 


76  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

least,  as  it  does  those  of  most  girls,  but  I  am  a  little 
weakened  physically.  After  the  first  half  day,  I  can 
see  little  change  from  my  normal  condition. 

No  one  has  ever  given  me  definite  information  con- 
cerning sexual  matters,  and  it  was  a  long  time  after 
the  first  menstruation  that  I  received  any  informa- 
tion at  all, — probably  I  was  about  sixteen.  Nearly 
all  I  know  has  been  gathered  from  scattered  reading, 
hearsay,  and  certain  Zoology  courses.  At  times  my 
lack  of  knowledge  has  given  me  some  grave  fears, 
and  made  me  nervous  in  having  anything  to  do  with 
men.  I  have  never,  since  I  was  a  tiny  child,  cared 
as  much  for  men  as  for  women,  but  I  have  never  felt 
any  repugnance  to  them.  If  I  ever  met  a  man  who 
came  up  to  my  ideal,  and  who  loved  me  as  I  should 
want  to  be  loved,  I  should  marry  him  without  hesi- 
tation. I  never  felt  particularly  favorable  to  the 
idea  of  having  children.  I  must  confess  that  it  is 
repugnant  to  me  in  every  way, — and  then,  children 
are  such  an  uncertain  lot.  However,  if  I  loved  enough 
to  marry,  which  is  doubtful,  no  sacrifice  would  be 
too  great. 

I  can  recall  no  erotic  dreams,  and  have  heard  very 
little  about  them  from  other  girls. 

Case.  V.  I  read  a  great  deal  from  seven  years  or 
so  up  to  the  time  I  went  to  college.  Reading  has 
given  me  most  of  my  cultural  interests  and  many  of 
my  ideals.  In  college,  I  liked  English  and  History 
for  the  subjects  themselves,  and  Sociology  and  Poli- 
tics because  of  the  teachers. 

I  am  not  sure  as  to  the  effect  of  menstruation  on 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  77 

the  quality  of  work  done.  The  quantity  is  less,  and 
there  is  more  effort,  I  have  no  pain,  but  am  languid 
and  lazy,  cry  easily.  I  find  no  marked  effect  on  the 
sexual  emotions.  Am  apt  to  be  discouraged  or  irri- 
table the  day  before  the  beginning  of  the  menstrual 
period. 

After  an  experience  with  a  playmate  in  mutual 
masturbation  at  nine  or  ten,  I  repented,  and  turned 
to  better  ways.  I  had  two  bitterly  repented  lapses 
at  twelve  and  fourteen.  At  eighteen,  I  was  more 
often  tempted,  but  my  lapses  were  few  and  far  be- 
tween, and  from  twenty-one  to  twenty-four  I  had  a 
record  free  from  masturbation.  During  this  period 
of  repression,  the  denied  desire  expressed  itself  in  very 
vivid  dreams.  I  would  wake  thinking  the  dream  had 
been  real,  then  realize  it  to  be  a  dream  with  mingled 
feelings  of  shame  and  relief. 

My  day-dreams  center  around  a  home  clearly  visual- 
ized. I  picture  myself  as  the  mother  of  a  large 
family,  but  their  father  is  a  shadowy  being.  My 
dreams  about  special  men  are  always  concerned  with 
going  somewhere,  dancing,  etc. 

Case  VI.  My  dreams  of  the  future  have  always 
been  more  or  less  influenced  by  favorite  teachers,  I 
believe.'  In  high  school,  encouraged  by  a  beloved 
teacher,  I  determined  to  go  to  college  and  prepare 
myself  for  a  life  of  teaching  Mathematics,  but  once 
there  Chemistry  and  Physics  lured  me,  as  I  liked  the 
teachers  of  those  subjects.  Of  course,  the  subjects 
themselves  opened  up  new  and  hitherto  unexplored 
fields  to  my  exploring  mind,  but  without  inspiring 


78  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

teachers,  my  interest  would  have  waned,  as  it  did  in 
Mathematics. 

At  the  menstrual  period  I  have  marked  attacks  of 
mental  depression.  There  is  little  or  no  physical 
pain,  though  I  am  more  apt  to  have  some  pain  than 
fonnerly,  probably  on  account  of  increased  sexual 
tension,  and  nervous  strain.  Work  requires  an  effort 
of  the  will,  and  causes  extreme  fatigue.  I  experience 
marked  increase  of  sexual  desire  just  before  the  be- 
ginning of  the  menstrual  period,  and  again  after  the 
third  day  of  that  function.  I  also  have  very  vivid 
erotic  dreams  at  this  time.  These  dreams  began 
when  I  was  twenty-one,  and  have  recurred  frequently 
ever  since.  Sometimes  I  awaken  before  the  act  is 
completed,  but  more  often,  an  entire  sexual  orgasm 
occurs.  The  dreams  are  most  apt  to  occur  well 
toward  morning,  and  on  several  successive  nights, 
after  which  I  am  too  weary  to  care  for  anything  in 
the  sexual  line  for  a  time. 

Spring  fever  is  a  prolongation  of  the  depression 
and  restlessness  and  desire  for  love  which  accompany 
the  menstrual  function.  I  satisfy  it  by  outdoor  life 
or  intensive  flirtation. 

My  day-dreams  were  originally  concerned  entirely 
with  my  ambitions  for  a  career  and  a  life  of  social 
service.  I  had  never  known  of  physical  sexual  passion 
until  my  Junior  year  at  college,  when  I  heard  a  lec- 
ture on  sex  hygiene.  At  about  the  same  time,  in 
the  course  of  dances,  I  began  to  feel  distinct  bodily 
thrills  from  the  pressure  against  my  breast  as  I  was 
held  closely  in  a  partner's  arms.     Even  yet  I  could 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  79 

not  realize  that  men  definitely  attracted  me.  Then  I 
learned  about  birth  control,  and  realized  that  mar- 
riage must  involve  frequent  sexual  relations.  As  the 
conscious  sexual  desire  increased,  and  I  began  to 
want  the  experience  I  was  having  in  dreams  in  actual 
life,  I  day-dreamed  of  having  masculine  love.  This 
reinforced  my  physical  longings,  and  made  me  sure 
I  wanted  marriage,  if  it  did  not  necessitate  my  re- 
nouncing all  other  work. 

Case  VII.  I  was  put  in  the  convent  when  a  child 
and  came  out  at  17.  During  summer  vacations  I 
made  friends  with  other  girls,  and  always  hated  to 
go  back  to  the  convent  school  and  leave  them,  for  I 
loved  them.  "When  I  was  16,  one  of  the  girls  gave 
me  a  novel;  I  stayed  up  all  night  to  read  it.  Oh, 
how  I  wanted  to  be  loved!  I  wondered  if  I  would 
ever  meet  a  man  to  love  me  like  the  hero  in  that 
book.  The  same  week  I  went  back  to  school,  and 
according  to  rules  had  to  go  to  confession.  The 
novel  reading  was  my  biggest  sin.  I  was  so  afraid 
the  priest  would  scold  me.  Instead  he  smiled.  Yet 
he  said,  "My  child,  there  are  bad  books,  and  you 
who  are  pure  at  heart  must  never  know  them.  The 
world  is  full  of  bad  men,  too,  you  should  stay  here  in 
the  convent,  and  devote  your  life  to  prayers  and 
sacrifice."  All  that  year  he  kept  trying  to  persuade 
me  to  stay  in  the  convent,  but  I  wanted  to  see  the 
outside  world.  I  wanted  love,  though  I  knew  so 
little  what  it  meant. 

The  summer  I  was  17  I  left  the  convent  for  good, 
and  began  to  work  in  my  father's  store.    One  day, — 


80  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

the  very  day  I  put  my  hair  up  for  the  first  time, — 
a  salesman  asked  me  to  go  for  a  spin  in  his  big  car. 
I  felt  I  was  really  grown  up  at  last.  I  told  him  I 
was  19,  it  sounded  older  than  17.  I  said,  ''Wait 
a  minute  till  I  tell  Father."  He  didn't  seem  to  like 
that.  Well,  dad  didn't  like  it  either.  He  sent  me 
home,  and  the  salesman  never  came  back  to  the  store 
again.  My  sister  told  me  not  to  be  too  nice  to  strange 
men.  I  wanted  to  know  why,  so  I  answered  an  adver- 
tisement and  got  a  book  called  "Sexual  Science."  It 
was  a  medical  work,  and  I  read  it  whenever  I  had  a 
chance.  My  sister  found  it  and  took  it  away  from  me. 
Then  I  got  library  books  on  anatomy,  etc. 

At  18  I  began  my  nurse's  training.  At  19  I  got 
my  first  private  case,  a  man  patient,  but  I  was  too 
busy  to  think  of  his  sex.  At  21  I  saw  the  first  cir- 
cumcision case  in  the  operating  room.  It  was  the 
first  time  I  had  realized  consciously  the  anatomical 
difference  between  the  sexes.  The  doctors  teased  me 
because  I  blushed  so  much. 

It  was  after  this  that  I  began  to  have  such  vivid 
sexual  feelings.  A  few  days  before  and  after  men- 
struation, how  I  longed  to  be  loved.  I  flirted  with  the 
doctors  at  those  times,  but  at  the  last  minute  I'd 
back  out, — I  was  scared, — and  my  religion  came  in, 
too.  They  would  be  provoked,  but  always  let  me 
go,  because  I  was  still  so  innocent. 

I  am  now  23,  and  deeply  in  love  with  another 
Catholic,  who  has  always  respected  me  as  the  doc- 
tors never  did.  I  have  often  dreamed  of  having  sexual 
intercourse  with  him  after  he  has  been  caressing  me. 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  81 

I  know  now  that  I  am  the  passionate  type,  and 
I  used  to  think  I  was  very  bad  to  be  so,  and  bound 
straight  for  HelL  Lately  I  have  come  to  imderstand 
that  it  is  natural  for  women  to  have  sexual  feelings 
and  my  mind  is  more  at  ease,  but  for  a  long  time 
I  thought  I  was  really  going  to  be  bad  as  the  nuns 
said. 

Even  these  few  concrete  cases  show  as  no 
amount  of  abstract  discussion  could  hope  to  do 
the  strength  and  vividness  of  the  new  affective 
life  upon  which  the  girl  enters  at  pubescence. 
But  the  all-important  point  is  the  tendency  of 
the  sexual  impulse  to  pass  over  into  other 
forms  of  emotion,  so  that  the  girl  is  actuated 
more  powerfully  by  fear,  anger,  or  more  espe- 
cially the  religious  and  aesthetic  emotions  than 
at  any  other  time  during  her  life.  Frink  notes 
this  tendency  of  the  sexual  energy  to  reinforce 
other  emotions  in  his  studies  of  pathological 
cases  (13:  p.  259),  and  points  out  that  no 
physiological  difficulty  is  involved  in  this  trans- 
formation since  the  same  metabolic  changes  are 
common  to  all  other  emotions  as  to  sex  tension. 
It  is  this  transformation  of  the  emotional  en- 
ergy which  suffuses  the  young  girl  with  a  sense 
of  shyness  closely  akin  to  fear,  or  gives  her 


82  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

the  repellant  boldness  which  makes  her  appear 
to  be  devoid  of  all  sentiments  of  modesty  and 
humility.  Often  this  unstable  emotional  state 
fluctuates  between  the  extremes  of  joy  and  sor- 
row, so  that  the  transition  from  the  supreme 
ecstasy  of  happiness  to  the  lowest  depths  of  de- 
spondency may  be  the  instantaneous  result  of 
•the  most  trivial  occurrence.  With  this  affective 
transmutation  is  correlated  congruous  efferent 
outlets,  so  that  the  sexual  impulse,  denied  its 
primary  expression,  seeks  other  pathways, 
sometimes  abnormal  and  injurious,  but  more 
often  of  great  use  and  beauty  for  the  individual 
and  society.  A  detailed  analysis  of  these  vica- 
rious sexual  activities  will  be  presented  in  later 
chapters. 

Although  the  thought  of  motherhood  is  not 
rigorously  repressed  from  consciousness  like 
the  idea  of  sexuality,  it  is  not  so  easy  to  detect 
the  presence  of  any  deep  maternal  instinct  in 
the  makeup  of  the  adolescent  girl.  Anticipa- 
tions of  motherhood  are  indeed  inculcated  in 
almost  every  girl  as  a  matter  of  social  tradi- 
tion, but  for  this  very  reason  it  is  difficult  to  be 
sure  just  how  much  of  the  enthusiasm  and  love 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  83 

for  children  which  she  professes  is  spontaneous, 
and  how  much  is  due  to  the  unconscious  motive 
of  desire  for  social  approval.  Dreams  of  child- 
birth, which  are  perhaps  more  common  among 
girls  than  the  purely  erotic  dream,  are  certainly- 
unmistakable  evidence  of  the  existence  of  such 
an  instinct  during  adolescence,  and  the  psycho- 
analysts admit  that  the  basis  of  many  a  sym- 
bolic dream  is  the  secret  desire  for  children 
rather  than  suppressed  sexual  wishes. 

In  visions  of  a  home  and  children,  again,  the 
day-dreams  of  the  adolescent  girl  find  a  fertile 
theme;  indeed  her  fancies  are  quite  as  much 
occupied  with  painting  pictures  along  this  line 
as  with  the  visualization  of  the  man  who  is 
to  share  this  happy  future.  As  Dr.  Peters  * 
has  found  in  her  work  with  adolescent  girls,  the 
ideal  man  is  more  often  the  ideal  father  than 
the  perfect  lover,  and  the  Eugenic  motive  is 
taking  an  ever  increasing  part  in  the  young 
girl's  conception  of  her  "Prince  Charming." 
That  the  modern  girl  is  beginning  to  choose  for 
her  husband  the  man  whom  she  wants  to  see 
as  the  father  of  her  chil(Jren  at  least  augurs 

*See  preface. 


84  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

well  for  the  future  of  the  race,  and  it  would  also 
seem  to  indicate  the  first  faint  stirrings  of  the 
maternal  impulse. 

Kohl  suggests  that  the  maternal  motive 
prompts  the  mothering  of  younger  brothers  and 
sisters,  and  also  appears  in  the  love  of  strange 
little  children  and  baby  animals.  All  these 
traits  are  very  apparent  in  the  adolescent  girl 
{19).  The  adolescent  passion  for  secrets  is 
recognized  by  G.  Stanley  Hall  as  genetically 
akin  to  nest-building  and  home-making,  which 
were  activities  carried  on  with  the  utmost  cau- 
tion during  the  long  phylogenetic  history  of  the 
race.  That  there  should  be  even  these  sugges- 
tions of  a  maternal  instinct  during  adolescence 
is  remarkable  when  we  consider  that  at  best  it 
can  only  be  faintly  prophetic  of  the  powerful 
impulse  to  come,  since  it  lacks  the  complete 
physiological  background  which  only  mother- 
hood itself  can  give. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY  FOR  CHAPTER  IL 

1.  Bell,  W.  Blair.     The  Sex  Complex.     233  pp.     Bail- 

liere,  Tindall  &  Cox.     London,  1916. 

2.  Buraham,  W.  H.    A  Study  of  Adolescence.    Ped.  Sem. 

June,  1891.    Pp.  174-195. 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  85 

3.  Bierent,  Leon.    La  Puberte  chez  L'homme  et  chez  La 

Femme.     200  pp.     Societe  des  Editions  Scientifiques. 
Paris,  1896. 

4.  Cannon,   W.   B.     Bodily    Changes   in   Pain,    Hunger, 

Fear  and  Rage.     311  pp.     Appleton.     N.  Y.,  1915. 

5.  Coriat,  I.  H.     The  Meaning  of  Dreams.     194  pp.  Lit- 

tle, Brown.     Boston,  1915, 

6.  Corin,  James.     Mating,  Maniage  and  the  Status  of 

Woman.     177  pp.     Seott.     London,  1910. 

7.  Crile,  Geo.     The  Origin  and  Nature  of  the  Emotions. 

240  pp.     Saunders.     Philadelphia,  1915. 

8.  Ellis,  Havelock.     Sex  in  Relation  to  Society.     656  pp. 

Davis.     Philadelphia,  1910. 

9.     .     Studies  in  the  Psychology  of  Sex.     Vol. 

II.     2  vols.     Davis.     Philadelphia,  1900. 

10.  Forel,  Auguste.    The  Sexual  Question.    536  pp.    Reb- 

man.     N.  Y.,  1908. 

11.  Freud,  Sigmund.     The  Interpretation  of  Dreams.    499 

pp.    Macmillan.     N.  Y.,  1913. 

12.  .  Three  Contributions  to  the  Sexual  The- 
ory. 91  pp.  Jour.  Nerv.  &  Ment.  Disease  Pub.  Co. 
N.  Y.,  1910. 

13.  Frink,  H.  W.     Morbid  Fears  and  Compulsions.     568 

pp.    Moffat,  Yard.     N.  Y.,  1918. 

14.  Gallichan,  W.  M.     The  Psychology  of  Marriage.     194 

pp.    Laurie.     London,  1918. 

15.  Hall,  G.  Stanley.    Adolescence.    Vol.  I.    2  vols.    Ap- 

pleton.   N.  Y.,  1904. 

16.    .     Educational  Problems.    Vol.  II.    2  vols. 

Appleton,  N.  Y.,  1911. 

17.    .     What  We  Owe  to  the  Tree-Life  of  Our 

Ape-Like  Ancestors.    Ped.  Sem.    V.  23,  1916.    Pp. 
94-119. 


86  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

18.  Holmes,  S.  J.     Studies  in  Animal  Behavior,     262  pp. 

Badger.     Boston,  1916. 

19.  Jung,  Carl  G.     Collected  Papers  on  Analytical  Psy- 

chology'.    492  pp.     Moffat,  Yard.     N.  Y.,  1917. 

20.  Kohl,  A.    Pubertat  und  Sexualitat.    82  pp.    Kabitsch. 

"VTurzburg,  1911. 

21.  MacLane,  Mary.     The  Story  of  Mary  MacLane.     322 

pp.     Stone.     Chicago,  1902. 

22.     .     My     Friend     Annabel     Lee.     262     pp. 

Stone.     Chicago,  1903. 

23.     .   I,  Mary  MacLane.    317  pp.     Stokes.    N. 

Y.,  1917. 

24.  Mason,  Otis  T.     Woman's  Share  in  Primitive  Culture. 

295  pp.     Appleton.     N.  Y.,  1899. 

25.  Marro.     La  Puberte  ehez  I'homme  et  chez  la  Femme. 

535  pp.     .     Paris,  1901. 

26.  Sharlieb  and  Sibley.     Youth  and  Sex.    92  pp.    Dodge. 

N.  Y.,  1913. 

27.  Silberer,   Herbert.     Problems   of  Mysticism   and   Its 

Symbolisms.     451  pp.     Moffat,  Yard.     N.  Y.,  1917. 

28.  Slaughter,  J.  W.    The  Adolescent.    100  pp.    Sonnen- 

schein.     London,  1911. 

29.  Smith,   T.  L.     Types  of  Adolescent  Affection.     Ped. 

Sem.     V    11,  1904.     Pp.  178-203. 

30.  Starr,  Louis.    The  Adolescent  Period.    211  pp.    Blak- 

iston.     Philadelphia,  1915. 

31.  Stopes.  Marie.    Mamed  Love.    117  pp.    Fifield.   Lon- 

don. 1918. 
32. .     Me:    A    Book   of   Remembrance.     Cen- 
tury.   Vols.  67-68,  1914-15. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE   ADOLESCENT    CONFLICT 

Origin  of  individualistic  impulses;  Will  to  power;  Factors 
which  reinforce  will  to  power  in  adolescent  girls ;  Illus- 
trative cases;  Freudian  interpretation  of  the  conflict; 
Cases  which  illustrate  the  conflict  between  the  will  to 
power  and  the  racial  impulses ;  Feminism  and  the  mas- 
culine protest;  The  real  adolescent  conflict. 

With  the  influx  of  sexual  impulses  into  her 
soul,  the  adolescent  girl  enters  upon  a  period 
of  intense  mental  conflict,  for  these  new  motivesi 
have  been  utterly  foreign  to  all  her  previous  ex- 
perience, and  not  without  a  struggle  to  retain 
their  old  supremacy  do  the  egocentric  tenden- 
cies give  way  to  the  altruistic  feelings  and  emo- 
tions. The  self-regarding  instincts  have  their 
genetic  origin  in  the  self -preservative  activities 
of  the  lower  organisms,  the  primordial  expres- 
sion being  the  absorption  and  assimilation  of 
nutritive  material.  The  whole  complex  strug- 
gle for  existence,  both  passive  and  active,  is 

87 


88  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

rooted  in  this  same  desire  to  prolong  individual 
existence,  a  desire  which  is  as  truly  a  form  of 
the  whole  libido,  or  elan  vital,  as  is  the  less  sel- 
fish racial  energy,  which  strives  for  the  preser- 
vation of  the  species. 

In  the  human  species,  the  egocentric  motives 
have  also  a  broad  psychic  irradiation  which  has 
been  aptly  named  by  Adler,  perhaps  through 
the  influence  of  the  Nietzschean  doctrines,  the 
will  to  power.  There  are  several  factors  which 
unite  to  reinforce  this  Wille  zur  Macht  at  ado- 
lescence, so  that  it  becomes  no  mean  competitor 
with  the  racial  impulses  in  the  struggle  for 
dominance  over  the  psychic  life.  Adler,  him- 
self, developed  the  theory  of  the  power  motif 
as  an  explanation  of  the  neurotic  constitution, 
in  which  he  considers  it  the  guiding  principle 
(1).  It  exists  just  as  truly  in  the  normal  indi- 
vidual, however,  but  the  latter  is  better  able 
to  make  his  adaptations,  so  that  his  conflicts  are 
not  as  disintegrating  as  those  of  the  neuro- 
pathic psyche. 

Physiologically,  the  will  to  power  is  condi- 
tioned by  some  defect  in  bodily  structure  or 
function,  for  which  the  nervous   system  at- 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  89 

tempts  to  compensate  by  exercising  its  regula- 
tive and  coordinative  powers  to  induce  other 
organs  and  systems  to  take  over  part  of  the 
duties  normally  performed  by  the  deficient 
member.  On  the  psychic  side,  the  organic 
weakness  and  consequent  nervous  strain  of  the 
effort  of  adjustment  are  accompanied  by  a  gen- 
eral feeling  of  inferiority,  for  which  the  indi- 
vidual attempts  to  compensate  by  a  striving 
for  power,  in  the  hope  of  thus  convincing  him- 
self that  his  fear  is  groundless  (2).  In  these 
days  of  lenient  natural  selection,  it  is  to  be  ex- 
pected that  the  vast  majority  of  individuals 
would  suffer  from  some  physical  imperfection, 
so  that  this  feeling  of  inferiority,  with  its  com- 
pensating power  motive,  is  a  common  factor  of 
the  psychic  life.  Th^t  it  is  intensified  in  the 
adolescent  girl  can  be  readily  demonstrated,  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  at  this  stage  the  racial 
impulses  become  paramount. 

"With  the  onset  of  pubescence,  and  the  begin-"" 
ning  of  menstruation,  there  is  first  brought  into 
the  focus  of  consciousness  the  radical  differ- 
ence between  the  male  and  female  organisms,  a 
fact  which  has  hitherto  been  little  considered 


90  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

by  the  girlish  mind.  Indeed,  as  both  Ellis  (5) 
and  Adler  (1)  have  remarked,  the  child  is  very 
often  uncertain  to  wliich  sex  it  belongs,  and 
always  likes  to  consider  itself  a  boy,  because 
the  father  is  to  it  the  embodiment  of  all  that  is 
strong.  Adler  further  emphasizes  the  rebellion 
of  the  adolescent  girl  against  the  admission  of 
her  femininity,  which  results  in  the  formation 
of  what  he  terms  the  masculine  protest,  or  set- 
ting up  the  ideal  of  manly  power  as  a  guiding 
principle,  a  process  which  may  be  either  con- 
scious or  unconscious.  This  refusal  to  be  recon- 
ciled to  the  feminine  role  is  almost  universal, 
for  the  physical  pains  of  menstruation  and  the 
accompanying  mental  depression  are  bitterly 
resented,  and  at  one  time  or  another  almost 
every  girl  has  been  heard  to  exclaim,  in  pas- 
sionate protest,  her  desire  to  be  a  man. 

It  is  now,  too,  for  the  first  time,  that  the  girl 
begins  to  feel  the  irksome  restraint  of  conven- 
tions which  she  has  been  permitted  to  disregard 
during  her  childish  days,  and  she  is  not  at  all 
pleased  at  being  forced  to  submit  to  a  control 
which  she  sees  her  brother  calmly  ignoring. 
And  with  her  new  freedom,  and  possibility  of 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  91 

economic  independence,  the  modern  girl  has  a 
means  of  expressing  her  rebellion  which  was 
denied  to  generations  which  had  before  them 
only  the  possibility  of  marriage  or  a  life  under 
the  parental  roof.  Thus  her  antagonism  to  the 
established  order  of  things,  either  biological  or 
social,  is  expressed  respectively  in  the  antipathy 
to  motherhood  or  in  the  flaming  resolve  to 
sweep  away  double  moral  standards  and  create 
a  mode  of  living  as  free  as  man's. 

Various  other  factors  unite  with  these,  so 
that  the  desire  to  control  and  dominate  may 
become  the  ruling  passion  of  the  girl's  life.  As 
Adler  found  in  his  clinical  studies,  this  motive 
is  very  often  prominent  in  the  etiology  of  the 
neurosis,  the  neurotic  affliction  being  used  as  a 
weapon  to  enforce  attention  and  coddling  from 
friends  and  relatives,  so  that  the  sufferer  feels 
herself  the  all-important  center  of  affairs. 
These  interacting  factors  which  determine  the 
power  complex  can  be  seen  best  in  connection 
with  concrete  examples,  however,  so  we  shall 
turn  aside  from  our  abstract  discussion  at  this 
point,  to  a  consideration  of  a  few  cases  which 


92  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

furnish  excellent  illustrations  of  the  thesis  up- 
held by  Adler  and  his  followers. 

Case  I.  Miss  Grey  was  an  attractive  girl  of  twenty. 
The  focal  point  of  her  complex  was  a  negligible  facial 
disfigurement  in  the  shape  of  a  peculiar  birthmark.  A 
deeper  organic  weakness  of  the  alimentary  tract  was 
the  fundamental  cause  of  her  feeling  of  inferiority 
and  compensating  will  to  power,  and  the  birthmark 
was  merely  the  conscious  symbol  of  her  complex.  Her 
mother's  unwise  treatment  fostered  Miss  Grey's  feel- 
ing of  inferiority,  for  she  was  always  comparing  the 
dress,  manners,  and  personality  of  her  daughter  un- 
favorably with  those  of  her  older  sister. 

The  psychic  compensation  for  the  feeling  of  in- 
feriority was  an  inordinate  craving  for  admiration 
and  attention,  which  was  gratified  by  fantasies  when 
denied  legitimate  satisfaction.  A  strange  malady  was 
developed  which  brought  her  to  the  notice  of  leading 
specialists,  unavailingly  for  its  cure,  but  in  a  way  to 
gratify  the  longing  to  be  the  center  of  attention.  Girl 
friends  were  pictured  as  having  desperate  * '  crushes, ' ' 
or  as  consumed  with  jealousy  of  her  superior  attrac- 
tions. Every  man  who  offered  any  attention  was  con- 
ceived to  be  madly  in  love,  and  filled  with  despair  be- 
cause of  the  coquettish  treatment  to  which  he  was  sub- 
jected. Indeed,  every  act  became  a  direct  outcome 
of  the  lust  for  domination. 

At  length  the  power  complex  assumed  an  almost 
tragic  aspect,  causing  a  rupture  with  Miss  Grey's 
most  intimate  friend  because  she  had  consoled  a  cast- 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  93 

off  lover  of  Miss  Grey's.  Previously,  the  adoration 
of  this  girl  friend  had  been  very  comforting,  but  as 
Miss  Grey  saw  one  iota  of  her  power  abate,  she  em- 
ployed every  artifice  she  could  devise  to  wreak  venge- 
ance upon  her  erstwhile  chum.  Failing  in  this,  she 
left  college  to  enter  a  private  school,  and  finallj'-  found 
a  better  way  to  satisfy  her  longing  for  power  through 
her  literary  efforts,  which  received  recognition  in  the 
new  environment. 

It  is  to  be  admitted  at  the  outset  that  Miss  Grey 
is  extremely  neurotic,  yet  in  the  final  analysis  her 
motivation  is  no  different  from  that  which  actuates 
the  normal,  healthy  adolescent.  It  is  merely  so  in- 
tensified in  her  that  it  is  readily  distinguishable  from 
the  complex  of  interacting  forces  which  shape  the 
course  of  human  destiny. 

Case  II.  Marie  Bashkirtseff,  as  appears  in  her 
famous  journal  (3),  was  born  of  an  aristocratic  fam- 
ily, but  because  her  father  and  mother  had  separated 
in  early  childhood,  the  consciousness  of  her  noble 
lineage  was  shadowed.  This  was  undoubtedly  one 
source  of  her  feeling  of  inferiority.  That  a  more 
definite  physiological  background  was  not  lacking, 
we  are  assured  by  the  knowledge  that  she  died  of 
consumption  at  the  close  of  her  adolescence,  which 
suggests  that  she  must  have  been  endowed  with  the 
delicate  physique  which  strives  for  psychic  compen- 
sation through  the  will  to  power. 

All  her  day-dreams  express  this  longing,  from  those 
early  visions  in  which  she  pictured  her  beloved  duke 
brought  to  her  feet  in  admiration  of  her  talents  and 


94  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

intellectual  ability,  to  the  later  reveries  in  which  she 
sees  herself  the  artist  of  the  hour,  a  figure  of  world- 
wide fame.  The  feeling  of  inferiority  tortures  her 
when  she  believes  herself  spurned  by  the  cardinal's 
nephew,  and  she  persuades  herself  that  she  never 
really  loved  him  at  all,  but  was  simply  whiling 
away  the  time  in  idle  flirtation.  Doubtless  this  state- 
ment is  perfectly  correct,  since  she  is  never  satisfied 
unless  every  man  she  meets  falls  victim  to  her  charms, 
thus  satisfying  her  longing  for  power.  Over  and 
over  again,  as  the  feeling  of  inferiority  seizes  her 
she  shakes  off  her  depression  by  the  vehement  asser- 
tion that  she  is  beautiful,  talented,  intelligent,  above 
all  other  women.  She  seeks  to  reconcile  her  father 
to  her  mother  in  order  that  she  may  have  the  delicious 
sense  of  being  able  to  rule  the  gruff  temperament  that 
has  always  refused  feminine  influence.  She  becomes 
an  ardent  student  that  she  may  impress  people  with 
her  superior  mental  abilitj'' ;  she  paints  like  a  madman 
or  a  genius,  in  order  that  she  may  truly  become  the 
latter;  finally,  she  writes  her  journal,  in  order  that 
her  wonderful  personality  may  at  least  impress  the 
world,  for  her  worst  fear  is  that  she  may  die  with- 
out having  gained  the  fame  she  craves  so  intensely. 
And  then  her  short,  high  pressure  life  bums  out,  and 
the  pitiful  attempts  to  assure  herself  that  her  weak- 
nesses are  wholly  imaginary  are  forever  ended. 

Case  III.  C.  S.  Yoakum  and  Mary  C.  Hill  have 
given  an  interesting  report  of  the  imaginary  activi- 
ties of  Miss  Z,  which  furnish  a  rich  field  for  a  psycho- 
analytic study  of  the  power  motive  (9). 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  95 

Miss  Z's  complexes  were  unearthed  during  the 
course  of  memory  tests  in  the  psychological  labora- 
tory where  she  was  a  student.  Her  remarkable  mem- 
ory for  the  "Binet  Letter  Squares"  was  found  to  be 
due  to  the  association  of  each  letter  with  some  word, 
the  group  of  words  with  these  initial  letters  forming 
a  series  of  pictures  from  Miss  Z's  past  experiences  or 
connected  with  her  ''complexes."  Thus  each  square 
came  to  represent  some  powerful  affective  element  in 
her  life. 

Detailed  study  of  Miss  Z  showed  that  ever  since 
childhood  she  had  been  in  the  habit  of  indulging  in 
mental  imagery  not  at  all  connected  with  the  work 
in  hand,  yet  she  has  so  adapted  herself  to  this  day- 
dreaming flight  from  reality,  that  it  has  not  inter- 
fered with  her  becoming  one  of  the  most  brilliant 
students  at  the  university.  Nevertheless,  this  train 
of  reveries,  which  is  fairly  continuous,  conditions  her 
reactions  much  more  than  stimulation  from  her  outer 
environment,  a  characteristic  suggestive  of  the  in- 
trovertive  type  of  mind. 

Without  going  into  any  elaborate  resume  of  the 
study  and  conclusions  presented  by  Yoakum  and  Miss 
Hill,  we  may  select  those  points  in  Miss  Z's  history 
which  immediately  stand  out  as  significant  for  the 
psychoanalyst.  She  desires  above  all  things  to  shine 
in  literature,  but  dislikes  sciences, — another  evidence 
of  the  introvertive  tendency  to  flee  from  reality.  This 
shrinking  from  the  harsher  things  of  existence  becomes 
explicable  when  we  leam  that  Miss  Z  during  her  whole 
college  course  was  in  danger  of  a  collapse  on  account 


96  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

of  her  anaemic  condition,  and  we  understand  that  she 
is  possessed  of  the  typical  "neurotic  constitution"  in 
the  Adlerian  sense  of  the  tenn. 

This  neurotic  weakness  was  manifested  in  the  two 
typical  forms:  the  feeling  of  inability  to  cope  with 
the  problems  of  a  normal  life,  and  the  compensating 
will-to-power,  expressed  in  the  desire  for  intellectual 
superiority.  These  two  motives  have  an  obvious  ex- 
pression in  certain  mental  attitudes  and  reactions 
characteristic  of  Miss  Z  at  the  present  time. 

In  the  first  place,  Miss  Z  admits  of  a  very  definite 
wish  that  she  might  remain  a  child  and  be  always 
with  her  mother,  and  confesses  that  she  is  constantly 
tortured  by  some  unnecessary  fear.  These  are  typi- 
cal reactions  of  the  neurotic  feeling  of  inferiority, 
and  together  with  her  consciousness  of  her  own  de- 
fects and  the  resultant  shyness  have  kept  her  from 
enjoying  the  comradeship  which  every  adolescent 
craves. 

In  order  to  console  herself  for  these  failings,  Miss 
Z  has  created  for  herself  in  her  reveries  a  beautiful 
and  gracious  dream  princess,  with  whom  she  more 
or  less  identifies  herself  at  the  same  time  that  she 
stands  apart  and  weaves  wonderful  adventures  for 
her.  Again,  realizing  her  physical  inability  to  shine 
in  athletics.  Miss  Z  pi;etends  that  she  despises  such 
accomplishments,  and  fixes  her  ambitions  upon  in- 
tellectual achievement.  As  we  have  noticed,  even  in 
this  field  she  avoids  those  sciences  which  are  most 
suggestive  of  the  hard  and  unchanging  facts  of  actual 
existence.     Her  hatred  of  convention  and  disregard 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  97 

of  accepted  standards  of  conduct  suggests  also  to  the 
psychoanalyst  that  this  furnishes  another  means  of 
feeling  herself  to  be  superior  to  her  fellows;  peculi- 
arity is  very  often  mistaken  for  a  sign  of  genius. 

There  is  little  doubt  that  this  extreme  intensifica- 
tion of  the  power  motive  in  Miss  Z  is  aggravated 
by  an  infantile  fixation  of  the  libido  upon  her  mother. 
She  has  never  made  any  of  the  later  transitions  of 
her  psychosexual  life  which  the  psychoanalysts  rec- 
ognize as  vital  for  normal  social  adjustment.  As  a 
result  she  has  none  of  the  natural  adolescent  inter- 
est in  the  opposite  sex;  indeed  men  are  the  greatest 
source  of  terror  to  her,  and  her  only  reaction  is  one 
of  avoidance.  Probably  this  abnormal  retardation 
of  the  libido  is  due  to  the  fact  that  Miss  Z  was  never 
able  to  love  her  father  to  any  great  extent,  an  im- 
portant step  in  the  development  of  the  love  life. 

As  a  result  of  this  pathological  condition  in  her 
life,  when  the  sex  instinct  struggled  for  expression 
in  early  adolescence,  it  was  sternly  repressed  by  her 
dislike  of  her  father.  This  conflict  was  symbolized 
in  dreams  and  in  her  fears  of  "the  attic  people,"  one 
of  whom  was  a  man  that  was  always  trying  to  slip 
downstairs  and  capture  her.  Her  intense  reaction  to 
a  certain  professor  is  probably  occasioned  by  a  slight 
renewal  of  this  conflict,  although  her  repression  of 
any  sexual  motive  has  been  so  complete  that  she  as- 
signs an  entirely  different  reason  for  the  dislike  which 
psychoanalysis  would  consider  a  defence  mechanism 
to  cover  an  unconscious  attraction. 


98  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

In  direct  opposition  to  the  Adlerian  princi- 
ple, which  would  interpret  the  longings  of  ado- 
lescence as  the  yearning  for  fuller  self-expres- 
sion, is  the  Freudian  belief  that  the  crux  of  the 
matter  is  the  struggle  to  release  the  racial 
impulses  from  their  infantile  fixations,  in  order 
to  transfer  them  to  a  more  socialized  goal.  Ac- 
cording to  this  view,  the  erotic  life  begins  long 
before  adolescence,  being  present  even  at  birth, 
the  sucking  reflex  being  a  form  of  sexual  ereth-  • 
ism  rather  than  a  manifestation  of  the  instinct 
of  self-preservation,  since  the  lips  are  essen- 
tially an  erogenous  zone  (6). 

Although  this  statement  is  entirely  one-sided 
and  extreme  in  its  viewpoint,  in  its  more  modi- 
fied form  it  contains  some  very  significant  im- 
plications, for  it  cannot  be  denied  that  the  early 
life  of  the  child  has  a  great  deal  to  do  with 
the  manner  of  meeting  the  adolescent  crisis, 
as  Freud  and  his  followers  claim.  Thus,  just 
as  the  father  becomes  the  emblem  of  strength  to 
his  son,  who  desires  to  emulate  him  in  this  re- 
spect, so  he  becomes  the  ideal  man  of  his  daugh- 
ter's unconscious  life,  her  choice  of  a  husband 
is  determined  by  this  father  complex,  and  she 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  99 

can  only  transfer  her  libido  to  a  man  who  pos- 
sesses some  striking  resemblance  to  him. 
Moreover,  there  is  a  tendency  to  assume  a  so- 
cial attitude  similar  to  that  created  by  family 
relationships,  so  that  an  unhappy  home  life  may 
embitter  the  girl  against  men  in  general,  since 
if  the  father  is  blamed,  she  develops  an  ambiv- 
alent form  of  the  CEdipus  complex,  and  re- 
places love  With  hate. 

Yet  all  this  is  simply  a  minor  impediment  to 
the  normal  functioning  of  the  racial  instincts  at 
adolescence.  The  colossal  struggle  is  not  here ; 
it  is  not  the  struggle  of  the  sexual  instincts 
and  outer  repressive  forces,  nor  yet  the  en- 
deavor of  the  w'll  to  po\ror  ^or  expression,  but 
rather,  as  Jung  more  wisely  stated,  the  conflict 
between  these  two  motives  which  is  the  real 
basis  of  the  adolescent  conflict  as  it  is  of  the 
neurosis.  Again  we  turn  to  concrete  illustra- 
tions to  make  the  meaning  of  this  statement 
clear. 

Case  I.  In  Miss  X  the  ruling  motive  of  her  con- 
scious life,  the  will  to  power,  was  expressed  through 
an  insistence  upon  the  equality  of  woman  with  man, 
and    a   passionate    rebellion    against    wifehood    and 


100  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

motherhood  as  wrecking  a  career.  It  developed  that 
this  "masculine  protest"  compensated  for  a  feeling  of 
inferiority  which  had  its  organic  basis  in  an  infan- 
tile disease  of  the  kidneys,  although  the  physical 
symptoms  of  the  childhood  trouble  had  disappeared 
entirely.  Nevertheless,  she  had  retained  an  oversen- 
sitive nervous  system,  so  that  praise  and  blame  re- 
acted on  her  whole  makeup,  both  mentally  and  physi- 
cally; while  her  resistance  to  disease  was  not  always 
as  good  as  it  should  have  been.  This  feeling  of  in- 
feriority had  been  increased  at  adolescence  by  her 
rebellion  against  the  menstrual  function,  a  rebel- 
lion which  was  tied  up  with  the  erroneous  ideas  of 
sex  relationships  which  she  had  gathered  from  her 
mother,  who  represented  woman  as  the  sufferer  at 
the  hands  of  the  brutal  male.  At  the  same  time,  there 
was  established  a  sense  of  social  inferiority  to  ac- 
company the  biological  one,  for  she  had  found  her- 
self possessed  of  an  exceedingly  plain  face  and  fig- 
ure, as  kindly  relatives  never  failed  to  point  out, 
and  her  awkwardness  was  emphasized  by  the  con- 
servative styles  imposed  by  her  mother. 

Miss  X's  attitude  toward  men  was  a  strange  mix- 
ture of  fascination  and  aversion,  a  reproduction  of 
her  feelings  for  her  father,  which  had  been  strongly 
ambivalent.  As  a  child,  she  had  loved  him  as  the 
donor  of  toys,  but  after  his  death  she  had  come  to 
hate  him  as  she  grew  older  and  realized  the  suffer- 
ing he  had  caused  her  mother.  Her  mother  encour- 
aged this  attitude.  The  daughter  extended  the  family 
situation  to  the  social  situation,  and  saw  in  man  only 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  101 

a  tyrant  who  used  woman  to  satisfy  his  own  passions, 
at  the  same  time  refusing  her  freedom  for  individual 
development.  In  spite  of  this  hostility,  Miss  X  could 
not  conquer  a  certain  unconscious  attraction  to  the 
other  sex,  and  to  reassure  herself  was  forced  to  double 
her  protestations  of  aversion. 

At  the  age  of  21  Miss  X  learned  for  the  first  time 
the  definite  facts  of  sexual  intercourse,  and  at  the 
same  time  became  conscious  of  her  own  sexual  longing 
through  erotic  dreams.  Indignant  that  she  had  so 
long  been  made  the  victim  of  the  tradition  of  womanly 
ignorance,  she  now  extended  the  tyranny  of  man  to 
the  ethical  realm,  and  averred  that  he  had  set  up 
a  double  moral  standard  solely  for  his  own  conveni- 
ence, and  with  utter  disregard  of  feminine  happi- 
ness. Hence  she  formulated  the  doctrine,  in  imitation 
of  Ellis,  Forel  and  Jones,  that  marriage  was  a  mere 
convention,  and  love  was  the  only  true  sanction  for 
sex  relationships. 

A  second  unconscious  motivation  for  the  acceptance 
of  this  doctrine  of  economic  independence  and  disre- 
gard for  conventional  standards,  was  the  fixation  of 
her  awakened  libido  upon  a  man  whom  she  knew  was 
not  in  an  economic  position  for  marriage,  although 
she  felt  that  he  was  attracted  to  her.  The  influence 
of  this  motive  was  apparent  in  the  fact  that  she 
always  sought  to  express  her  views  in  his  presence,  and 
was  quite  provoked  when  he  attempted  to  controvert 
them.  It  was  at  the  critical  moment  when  she  had 
all  the  adolescent  passion  to  prove  her  beliefs  that 
another  man  came  into  the  case. 


102  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

The  second  man  was  much  younger  than  Miss  X, 
but  encouraged  all  her  views,  and  gave  her  the  un- 
stinted praise  which  she  had  been  denied  in  her  home 
life.  He  appeared  as  the  ideal  and  hero  of  her  dreams 
of  a  lover,  one  who  should  have  the  same  moral  code 
for  one  sex  as  the  other,  and  who  should  love  as 
deeply  outside  the  marriage  bond  as  inside  it.  The 
proposal  of  a  secret  liaison  troubled  her,  however, 
for  all  her  dreams  of  unconventionality  had  involved 
open  defiance  of  traditions,  and  had  given  her  an 
anticipatory  thrill  of  power  as  she  felt  hei-self  not  only 
able  to  think  unhampered  by  convention,  but  capable 
of  forcing  society  to  admit  the  correctness  of  her  views 
by  the  illuminating  guidance  of  her  example. 

Fortunately  for  Miss  X,  circumstances  separated 
her  for  a  time  from  her  lover,  and  without  his  sup- 
port the  old  feeling  of  inferiority  returned,  and  she 
began  to  doubt  her  ability  to  cope  with  society  once  she 
had  definitely  entered  upon  an  unconventional  re- 
lationship. Yet  her  work  no  longer  satisfied  her,  for 
all  her  dreams  of  a  career  had  been  swept  away  in 
the  tide  of  her  awakened  love-life,  and  she  cared  to 
live  only  for  her  lover. 

There  followed  six  months  of  mental  conflict,  with 
only  one  desire  paramount, — the  longing  to  escape  the 
necessity  of  a  decision  in  suicide.  It  was  the  old 
introversion  of  the  will  to  live,  or  life  force.  Find- 
ing the  stern  realities  of  life  too  hard  to  grapple 
with.  Miss  X  longed  to  approximate  the  peace  of  the 
maternal  womb  in  death.  The  one  conviction  which 
aided  her  to  resist  this  abnormal  impulse  was  a  sense 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  103 

of  duty  to  her  mother.  Then  a  trivial  incident  sug- 
gested that  she  might  have  been  mistaken  in  her 
lover's  affection.  Instantly  the  old  feeling  of  in- 
feriority and  the  ambivalent  attitude  toward  men 
returned.  Hate  triumphed  over  love  momentarily, 
and  there  came  an  overwhelming  desire  to  hurt  her 
lover  and  thus  satisfy  her  thirst  for  power. 

In  order  to  accomplish  both  purposes,  Miss  X  now 
announced  her  intention  of  marrying  another  man 
who  had  come  into  her  life,  and  actually  attempted 
to  resign  herself  to  the  loss  of  her  work  and  the  idea 
of  home  life.  But  a  slight  humiliation,  fancied  or 
real,  at  the  hands  of  the  second  lover,  roused  the  old 
ambivalence,  and  terminated  the  second  affair. 

Although  by  this  time  Miss  X  was  convinced  that 
she  had  been  mistaken  about  the  first  lover,  and  her 
love  for  him  had  returned,  the  fear  of  a  rebuff  (the 
inferiority  motive  again)  restrained  her  from  making 
any  advances  toward  a  reconciliation.  There  became 
necessary  the  finding  of  some  means  of  sublimation 
for  her  sexual  nature,  and  at  last  Miss  X  chanced  upon 
the  compromise  which  served  to  solve  the  long  con- 
flict between  that  motive  and  the  will  to  power.  Long 
since,  the  genetic  Weltanschauung  had  become  a  spur 
to  her  imagination,  but  now  she  came  to  feel  it  as 
a  real  religious  emotion,  to  feel  herself  one  with  the 
human  race,  and  to  let  her  love  flow  out  to  them 
instead  of  focussing  it  on  one  person.  And  in  the 
feeling  that  she  was  only  a  tiny  part  of  that  whole, 
organic  unity,  the  sense  of  her  own  imperfections 
became  less  oppressive.    In  creative  artistic  work  she 


104  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

found  once  more  the  satisfaction  of  the  creative  emo- 
tion which  gives  the  intoxicating  sense  of  power 
that  the  mystics  of  old  felt  in  their  ecstasies,  and  at 
the  same  time,  the  work  became  a  sublimated  outlet 
for  her  sexual  energy,  now  turned  into  proper  chan- 
nels to  emerge  as  a  highly  socialized  product. 

Case  II  *  If  Miss  X  appears  to  be  a  slightly  neuro- 
tic type,  and  hence  predisposed  to  undergo  the  adoles- 
cent conflict  with  undue  severity,  Miss  Y  is  entirely 
the  opposite.  Of  obviously  excellent  physical  makeup, 
she  is  caught  in  the  toils  of  the  same  struggle  be- 
tween love  and  ambition. 

Although  there  was  nothing  in  Miss  Y's  physical 
life  to  form  the  basis  of  a  feeling  of  inferiority,  cer- 
tain circumstances  in  her  social  situation  caused  her 
an  undue  amount  of  humiliation  during  the  critical 
period  of  her  early  adolescence.  From  a  home  where 
she  had  been  petted  and  spoiled  to  the  utmost,  she  was 
sent  in  her  early  teens  to  a  convent,  where  her  irreve- 
rent attitude,  due  solely  to  carelessness,  often  brought 
rebukes  from  the  gentle  nuns,  and  filled  the  wilful 
girl  with  agonies  of  shameful  emotion  when  she  was 
sent  to  the  priest  to  confess  her  sins. 

In  the  holy  atmosphere  of  the  convent,  with  its 
emphasis  upon  purity  of  mind  and  heart,  the  vague 
restlessness  and  physical  longings,  which  took  definite 
shape  only  in  erotic  dreams,  oppressed  the  sensitive 
girlish  spirit  with  a  sense  of  unpardonable  sin.  She 
did  not  understand  all  that  her  dreams  and  reveries 

*  Case  VII,  Chapter  II,  shows  Miss  Y  's  own  attitude  toward 
her  problem. 


,^ 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  .J         105 

implied,  for  sex  was  a  sealed  book  to  her,  with  her 
convent  education,  but  she  felt  sure  that  if  the  nuns 
knew  her  heart  they  would  turn  away  in  horror  to 
find  it  so  black.  And  so  at  seventeen  she  left  the  con- 
vent, still  uninstructed  in  the  simplest  details  of  the 
sexual  life  and  of  the  act  of  procreation,  but  bearing 
a  sense  of  secret  sin,  and  hating  the  nights  which 
came  with  the  wicked  dreams  that  she  believed  to  be 
wrong  but  could  not  prevent  with  all  her  prayers. 

It  is  quite  logical  to  conclude  that  this  unsatisfied 
sexual  curiosity  was  one  of  the  unconscious  motives 
which  led  Miss  Y  to  choose  the  profession  of  nursing 
for  her  life  work.  Here,  too,  in  a  life  of  service  second 
only  to  that  of  the  nuns  in  usefulness,  was  an  outlet 
for  the  repressed  mood  of  repentance  and  desire  to 
atone  for  the  secret  sin  which  even  yet  she  did  not 
understand.  If  there  were  other  motives  than  these 
in  her  conscious  life,  we  may  be  sure  that  they  were 
no  stronger  than  these  unconscious  impulses  which  im- 
pelled her  to  enter  into  training  at  the  

Hospital. 

For  a  long  time  the  other  nurses  could  not  believe 
in  the  reality  of  the  new  probationer's  ignorance, 
but  once  convinced,  they  set  to  work  to  enlighten  her 
along  the  lines  of  sex  instruction.  The  courses  which 
were  a  part  of  her  training  sei'ved  the  same  purpose, 
and  the  care  of  patients  and  companionship  with  vari- 
ous doctors  completed  her  theoretical  knowledge  of 
the  subject. 

It  was  now  that  the  real  struggle  between  Miss  Y  's 
sexual  nature  and  her  ambitions  and  love  of  work 


106  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

began.  Being  exceedingly  young  and  attractive,  she 
had  no  lack  of  opportunities  to  gratify  her  longing 
for  love,  both  in  marriage  and  in  unconventional  rela- 
tionships. Yet  always  there  seemed  to  be  an  obsta- 
cle which  would  intervene  whenever  she  had  appar- 
ently reached  a  decision. 

In  the  one  case,  when  Miss  Y  considered  marriage, 
there  was  involved  the  necessity  of  relinquishing  the 
work  which  both  for  its  own  sake,  and  as  a  satis- 
faction for  the  unconscious  motives  mentioned  above, 
had  become  a  vital  part  of  her  life.  And  so  she  put 
off  her  suitors  with  evasive  replies,  unable  to  give 
them  definite  answers  because  she  was  unable  to  make 
any  real  and  lasting  decision  in  her  own  mind. 

On  the  other  hand,  whenever  Miss  Y  decided  to 
accept  some  unconventional  proposal,  which  offered 
satisfaction  of  her  sexual  needs  at  the  same  time  that 
it  permitted  her  to  retain  her  independence  and  her 
work,  the  old  religious  protest  would  invariably  crop 
out,  and  at  the  last  moment  she  would  turn  away 
from  her  lover  with  the  cry  that  it  was  a  wrong  thing 
they  proposed  to  do. 

In  this  dilemma,  Miss  Y  turned  to  homosexual  re- 
lationships with  other  girls,  while  she  sought  to  gain 
time  to  choose  between  the  two  alternatives  proposed 
above.  This  means  of  obtaining  satisfaction  peculiarly 
enough  seemed  to  involve  no  pangs  of  conscience  on 
account  of  religious  scruples,  nor  did  it  interfere 
with  plans  and  ambitions  for  her  work.  At  the  time 
of  analj^is,  this  homosexual  tendency  was  only  in 
its  initial  stagf^,  but  there  was  and  is  grave  danger 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  107 

of  its  becoming  a  permanent  habit,  since  Miss  Y  was 
forced  to  move  before  the  analysis  had  been  carried 
very  far,  or  a  final  sohition  had  been  worked  out. 

What  the  ultimate  solution  of  Miss  Y's  difficulty 
will  be,  therefore,  only  time  can  tell.  She  realizes 
her  danger  in  yielding  to  any  homosexual  impulse,  and 
seems  to  be  turning  toward  the  idea  of  marriage  more 
and  more.  Probably  the  choice  of  marriage,  even  at 
the  expense  of  her  work,  would  be  her  wisest  de- 
cision, for  it  is  extremely  doubtful  whether  the  emo- 
tional traces  of  her  early  religious  training  would 
ever  permit  her  to  enjoy  an  unconventional  liaison 
without  unendurable  pangs  of  conscience. 

Case  III.  In  her  psychoanalytic  study  of  Charlotte 
Bronte,  Miss  Dooley  reports  an  interesting  example 
of  the  adolescent  conflict  as  prolonged  in  genius  (4). 
She  characterizes  the  famous  author  as  being  always 
adolescent,  and  says  that  she  never  reached  full  ma- 
turity, for  which  reason  she  is  a  valuable  exponent 
of  some  of  the  deeper  phenomena  of  adolescence. 

Charlotte  Bronte  was  afflicted  with  a  deep  feeling 
of  inferiority,  due  partly  to  an  innate  neurotic  trend, 
but  over-emphasized  by  the  loneliness  of  her  child- 
hood home,  the  loss  of  the  mother  who  might  have 
guided  her  aright,  most  of  all  by  her  father's  teach- 
ing that  it  was  not  wise  to  love  too  well,  and  by  the 
awe  which  his  aloofness  inspired  in  the  hearts  of  his 
children.  At  Rose  Head  School,  at  the  age  of  fif- 
teen, a  schoolmate  told  her  that  she  was  very  ugly, 
and  this  was  the  final  touch  which  made  her  convie- 


108  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

tion  of  inferiority  unalterable,  so  that  she  believed 
all  who  knew  her  must  pity  and  despise  her. 

Strangely  enough,  she  did  not  develop  a  strong  com- 
pensatory will  to  power,  for  the  racial  instincts  were 
too  powerful  in  her  life  to  be  sufficiently  repressed 
for  that.  They  did,  however,  become  perverted  in 
the  struggle,  and  were  relegated  to  more  or  less  un- 
conscious levels.  Her  longing  for  children  was  never 
admitted  into  her  conscious  reveries,  but  the  maternal 
instinct  was  strong  within  her  soul,  and  stood  revealed 
in  Miss  Dooley  's  analyses  of  her  dream  life,  and  of  her 
writings.  That  she  had  a  deeply  rooted  father  com- 
plex to  prevent  her  falling  in  love  outside  the  family 
circle,  a  detailed  discussion  of  the  motives  which  in- 
duced her  to  sacrifice  a  career  and  personal  freedom 
in  order  to  care  for  her  father's  declining  years 
shows  very  clearly.  "When  she  did  marry  it  was 
only  at  her  father's  request,  and  to  a  much  older 
man.  Even  then,  she  died  before  the  birth  of  her 
child,  too  torn  by  the  never-solved  conflict  of  adoles- 
cence to  finally  give  herself  over  to  the  great  vital 
forces  of  the  race. 

Thus  the  never-ending  conflict  ran  on  all  her  life, 
so  that  on  the  one  hand  she  longed  for  the  outside 
world  where  she  might  achieve  personal  independence, 
and  allay  forever  the  torturing  doubt  of  her  powers 
due  to  her  feeling  of  inferiority;  while  on  the  other 
hand,  she  felt  herself  drawn  ever  more  firmly  to  her 
father,  with  whom  she  came  more  and  more  to  fill 
her  mother's  place.  It  was  this  dual  nature  which 
made  her  life  and  work.     She  had  not  only  an  am- 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  109 

bitious,  aggressive,  egoistic  side,  that  rebelled  against 
restraint,  but,  pulling  against  it,  a  passive,  feminine, 
yielding  self,  that  could  not  tear  itself  loose  from  the 
bonds  of  the  family  life  and  the  attachment  of  the 
father-ideal.  Could  she  have  freed  herself  from  this 
CEdipus  complex,  and  turned  her  energies  outward 
to  a  normal  goal  outside  the  family,  her  books  as 
well  as  her  life,  would  have  been  other  than  they 
were,  for  all  her  writings  were  but  the  projection  of 
this  inner  struggle,  which  she  felt,  but  could  only 
express  through  these  unconscious  symbolisms. 

In  the  light  of  these  concrete  studies  of  the 
adolescent  girl,  which  might  be  indefinitely  mul- 
tiplied, we  cannot  fail  to  realize  that  there  some- 
times occurs  an  undue  prolongation  of  the  psy- 
chic struggle  which  should  normally  be  adjusted 
without  any  obvious  difficulty.  We  have  seen 
in  the  preceding  chapter,  that  the  racial  in- 
stincts are,  in  the  natural  course  of  events,  the 
paramount  influences  of  the  girl's  innermost 
being;  but  we  have  seen,  also,  that  the  egoistic 
forces  may  be  reinforced  by  some  untoward 
occurrence,  so  that  the  surrender  to  these 
deeper  motives  may  be  greatly  delayed,  or  even 
rendered  entirely  impossible.  That  this  con- 
dition   is    becoming    increasingly    prevalent 


110  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

among  the  present  generation,  with  its  aver- 
sion to  wifehood  and  motherhood,  and  its  em- 
phasis upon  the  egocentric  ideals  of  life  bor- 
rowed from  a  man-made  set  of  values,  cannot  be 
denied. 

The  feministic  philosophy  is  expressive  of 
this  state  of  affairs,  for  it  has  drifted  away 
from  the  "Mutterschutz"  movement  in  which 
it  originated,  and  to  the  popular  mind,  at  least, 
means  only  that  woman  has  set  up  a  rivalry 
with  man  in  his  own  domain,  claiming  for  her- 
self the  mental,  moral  and  physical  freedom 
which  has  hitherto  been  the  peculiar  privilege 
of  the  male  sex.  In  other  words,  this  type  of 
feministic  theory  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than 
a  colossal  '' masculine  protest,"  the  Adlerian 
fictitious  power  goal  of  the  neurotic,  expressing 
itself  in  the  social  mind. 

Owen  Johnson,  in  the  preface  to  his  novel 
The  Salamander,  has  very  well  characterized 
the  adolescent  girl  who  is  caught  in  this  mental 
and  social  maelstrom,  in  the  following  words ; 

"She  comes  roaming  from  somewhere  out  of  the  im- 
mense reaches  of  the  nation,  revolting  against  the  com- 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  111 

monplaceness  of  an  inherited  narrowness,  passionately 
adventurous,  eager  and  unafraid,  neither  conscious  of 
what  she  seeks,  nor  sure  what  forces  impel  or  cheek 
her.  .  .  .  New  ideas  are  stirring  within  her,  logical  re- 
volts,— equality  of  burden  with  men,  equality  of  oppor- 
tunity and  of  pleasure.  She  is  sure  of  one  life  only, 
and  that  one  she  passionately  desires.  She  wants  to 
live  life  at  its  fullest,  now,  in  the  glory  of  her  youth. 
She  wants  to  breathe,  not  to  stifle.  She  wants  adventure. 
She  wants  excitement  and  mystery.  She  wants  to  see,  to 
know,  to  experience.  .  .  . 

"But  always,  back  of  the  passionate  revolt  against 
the "  commonplace,  back  of  all  the  defiantly  proclaimed 
scorn  of  conventions,  there  are  the  hushed  echoes  of  the 
retreating  first  generation,  there  are  the  old  memories, 
whispers  of  childhood  faith,  hesitations  and  doubts  that 
return  and  return,  and  these  quiet,  suspended  sounds  make 
her  turn  aside,  make  of  her  a  being  constantly  at  war 
with  herself.  .  .  .  We  see  clearly  two  generations.  .  .  . 
The  third,  that  coming  generation,  in  which  woman  will 
count  for  so  much,  where  for  the  first  time  she  will  con- 
struct and  order, — where  will  it  go.  Will  those  who  have 
been  salamanders  to-day,  turned  mothers  to-morrow,  still 
teach  what  they  have  proclaimed,  that  what  is  wrong  for 
the  woman  is  wrong  for  the  man,  and  that  if  man  may 
experience,  woman  may  explore?"  (7.) 

Mr.  Johnson's  statement  is  very  accurate, 
but  he  has  failed  to  grasp  the  fundamental  rea- 
son which  prevents  the  whole-hearted  carrying 
out  of  this  feministic  creed.  For  i^  the  last 
analysis,  it  is  not  the  weight  of  old  tradition, 


112  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

nor  the  force  of  social  pressure  alone,  which 
holds  the  girl  back  from  the  actual  practice 
of  this  beautiful  new  theory,  ^but  a  deeper, 
stronger  influence,  the  rebellion  of  her  own 
unconscious  psychic  forces  against  a  step  so 
utterly  foreign  to  their  nature.  For  the  power 
motive,  based  as  it  is  on  organic  deficiency,  is 
a  pathological  phenomenon  in  the  psychic  life 
when  carried  to  the  extreme,  particularly  in 
woman,  who  by  her  entire  biological  heritage 
from  an  illimitable  past  is  irrevocably  given 
over  to  a  wholly  different  motive,  in  which  love 
and  self-sacrifice  and  tenderness  are  the  pre- 
dominant factors. 

'  Kidd  has  spoken  truly  when  he  declares  that 
the  fighting  male  is  the  ultimate  expression  of 
the  power  principle,  while  woman  is  the  embodi- 
ment of  that  richer  emotional  life  which  founded 
the  family  and  society,  and  is  now  called  to  the 
still  higher  mission  of  guiding  a  civilization 
that  has  been  too  long  in  the  hands  of  men, 
who  have  cursed  it  with  continual  strife  in 
their  lust  for  conquest  (5) .  As  has  been  stated, 
woman  comes  into  this  magnificent  heritage  at 
adolescence;  why  then  should  the  adolescent 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  113 

conflict  which  has  been  analyzed  in  this  chapter 
be  so  severe?  Primarily  because  the  power 
motive  comes  more  easily  into  consciousness 
than  the  racial  impulses,  which  are  more  or  less 
submerged  in  the  lower  strata  of  the  nervous 
organism,  physiologically  speaking,  and  tend 
also  to  be  repressed  into  the  unconscious  by  the 
whole  social  mechanism. 

Because  these  deeper  racial  instincts  have  so 
long  been  unrecognized  and  unclassified,  the 
adolescent  girl's  rebellion  against  the  influences 
which  tend  to  cramp  her  development  is  mis- 
guided by  the  adoption  of  a  false  set  of  stand- 
ards, so  that  instead  of  seeking  an  expression  of 
her  own  peculiar  nature,  and  making  her  own 
unique  contribution  to  the  race,  she  has  some- 
times attempted  to  follow  the  man-made  path 
instead  of  blazing  the  trail  for  herself.  Only 
when  she  awakes  to  the  fact  that  her  role  in  the 
world  order  is  as  primeval  and  significant  as 
man 's ;  only  when  she  solves  the  conflict  within 
her  soul  by  yielding  completely  to  her  deepest 
emotional  nature,  will  she  achieve  the  proud 
position  for  which  she  has  been  longing,  and 
find  herself  forming  a  part  of  the  dual  power 


114  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

which  is  needed  for  racial  salvation, — a  power 
in  which  the  quick  sympathy  of  woman  supple- 
ments the  slower  intellectual  guidance  of  man. 
And  it  is  only  as  she  attains  this  position  which 
is  so  entirely  in  harmony  with  her  whole  being, 
that  the  adolescent  conflict,  in  the  individual 
and  in  the  race,  will  be  finally  and  rightfully 
solved. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY  FOR  CHAPTER  III. 

1.  Adler,  Alfred.     The  Neurotic   Constitution.     456   pp. 

Moffat,  Yard.     N.  Y.,  1917. 

2.    .     A   Study  of  Organ  Inferiority  and  Its 

Psychic  Compensation.    86  pp.    Jour.  Nerv.  &  Ment. 
Disease  Pub.  Co.    N.  Y.,  1917. 

3.  Bashkirtseff,  Marie.    Journal  of  Marie  Bashkirtseflf.  825 

pp.    Rand,  MaeNally  &  Co.    N.  Y.,  1890. 

4.  Dooley,  Lucile.    Psychoanalytic  Study  of  Genius.    Part 

II:    Charlotte  Bronte  as  a  Type  of  the  Woman  of 
Genius.    Ph.D.  dissertation,  Clark  University. 

5.  Ellis,  Havelock.     Sex  in  Relation  to  Society.     656  pp. 

Davis.    Philadelphia,  1910. 

6.  Freud,   Sigmund.     Three  Contributions  to  the   Sexual 

Theory.    91  pp.    Jour.  Nerv.  &  Ment.  Disease  Pub. 
Co.    N.  Y.,  1910. 

7.  Johnson,   Owen.     The  Salamander.     529  pp.     Bobbs- 

Merrill.     Indianapolis,  1914. 
.8.    Kidd,    Benjamin.      The   Science  of   Power.     306   pp. 
Methuen.    London,  1918. 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  115 

Yoakum,  C.  S.  &  Hill,  Mary  C.  Persistent  Complexes 
Derived  through  Free  Associations:  Miss  Z's  Case. 
Jour.  Ab.  Psy.  V.  11,  1916-17.  Pp.  215-257;  396- 
408. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE   SUBLIMATION    OF   THE   LIBIDO 

Man  more  sexual  than  other  animals;  Religious  and  social 
repressive  factors;  Vicarious  efferent  outlets  for  sex 
tension ;  Scott  on  sublimation ;  Don  Marquis'  poem ; 
Significance  of  sublimation  for  adolescence;  Pedagog- 
ical apiolications ;  The  role  of  sublimation  in  the  solu- 
tion of  the  adolescent  conflict. 

Just  as  the  psychoanalysts  have  been  the  first 
to  imply  the  essential  nature  of  the  adolescent 
crisis,  so  in  their  doctrine  of  sublimation  they 
have  given  us  at  least  one  adequate  solution  of 
the  mental  conflict  which  it  involves.  For  the 
inherent  tendency  of  the  sexual  instinct  to 
transmute  its  energy  into  other  channels, — to 
* '  sublimate ' '  itself, — is  never  more  marked  than 
during  the  period  of  adolescence.  In  order  to 
fully  understand  the  significance  of  this  for  the 
girl's  life,  we  must  make  a  wide  digression  at 
this  point,  and  going  back  into  the  field  of  ge- 
netic psychology,  trace  the  development  of  the 

116 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  117 

innate  tendency  of  the  reproductive  instinct  to 
find  an  outlet  through  the  vicarious  channels 
of  art  and  religious  activities. 

**In  the  gray  dawn  of  human  life/'  says  Mar- 
garet Skyde  {38:  p.  9),  "everything  was  quite 
simple.  Man  and  woman  were  as  simply  a  part 
of  nature  as  were  other  members  of  the  animal 
kingdom.  The  sexual  impulse  was  nothing 
more  than  a  powerful  instinct,  very  like  hunger, 
thirst,  the  desire  for  sleep.  Its  satisfaction 
brought  a  sense  of  physical  well-being  much  like 
the  satisfaction  of  other  needs." 

Little  by  little,  as  the  ages  passed,  all  this 
changed.  According  to  genetic  psychology, 
when  our  first  progenitors  came  down  from  the 
trees,  and  took  to  living  in  the  caves,  there  were 
certain  conditions  in  their  life  which  brought 
the  function  of  sex  from  an  instinctive  to  a 
conscious  level.  The  bi-pedal  position,  the  loss 
of  a  hairy  covering,  the  intimate  throwing  aside 
of  garments  in  the  warmer  atmosphere  of  the 
cave  dwellings,  the  use  of  the  hand  for  sexual 
stimulation,  all  tended  to  focus  the  attention 
on  the  organs  of  reproduction  and  to  emphasize 
sex  as  it  had  never  before  been  emphasized. 


118  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

It  has  been  suggested  that  there  followed  a 
stage  of  human  evolution  when  man  wallowed 
in  the  mire  of  sensualism,  until  he  had  ex- 
hausted his  racial  vigor,  and  was  like  to  sink 
back  below  the  animals  whence  he  had  emerged. 
But  an  all-wise  nature  had  not  endowed  him 
with  so  vast  a  fund  of  energy  in  order  to  see  it 
thus  go  to  waste,  and  in  the  end  its  irresistible 
power  became  its  saving  quality. 

In  order  to  understand  how  this  came  about, 
we  must  fully  realize  the  fundamental  tendency 
of  the  human  psyche  to  project  its  subjective 
emotional  states  upon  whatever  object  of  the 
environment  has  acted  as  a  stimulus  to  arouse 
the  feeling.  That  deep  affective  elements  can 
be  excited  by  very  casual  stimuli  is  explained 
by  Jung  {25) J  Carpenter  (4),  and  Crile  (7) 
from  the  genetic  viewpoint ;  but  early  man,  lack- 
ing this  scientific  data,  concluded,  as  Crawley 
(6)  and  Sumner  (43)  have  pointed  out,  that 
this  emotion  was  due  to  some  superhuman  pow- 
er residing  in  the  stimulus  itself.  Thus,  we  can 
understand  that  man  came  very  early  to  wor- 
ship the  great  sun-god  because  there  had  been 
stamped  upon  the  neural  tissues  a  long  series  of 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  119 

racial  patterns  connected  with  light  stimuli, 
motor  patterns  no  longer  of  survival  value,  so 
that  their  stimulation  no  longer  results  in  a  re- 
flex action,  but  is  ushered  into  consciousness  in 
the  form  of  an  emotional  state.  Carpenter  has 
observed  that  there  is  a  desire  to  personify 
whatever  has  awakened  these  racial  memories 
and  brought  us  into  touch  with  the  great  sub- 
conscious mind  of  the  race,  and  that  herein  we 
have  the  origin  of  all  the  deities  which  man  has 
set  up  for  himself  in  the  long  ages  of  his  de- 
velopment (4).  Not  only  the  sun,  but  the  trees, 
rain,  rocks,  and  every  natural  object,  had 
played  an  important  role  at  one  time  or  another 
in  the  life  of  primitive  man,  so  that  there  grew 
up  a  kind  of  nature  worship,  which  regarded 
them  as  inhabited  by  supernatural  beings,  or 
pervaded  by  some  spiritistic  force,  like  the 
"mana"  principle  of  which  Durkheim  makes 
so  much  (45). 

The  connection  between  this  tendency  and  the 
rescuing  of  man  from  the  consequences  of  his 
overdeveloped  sexuality  becomes  clear  w^hen 
we  remember  the  universal  phallic  cult  or  re- 
ligion that  swept  over  the  world  at  one  time. 


120  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

and  recollect  the  elaborate  system  of  sexual 
taboos  and  magic  ceremonials  that  became  in- 
terwoven with  the  social  customs  of  the  ancient 
races.  Having  reached  a  state  of  mind  where 
all  his  thoughts  were  sexually  inclined,  man 
came  to  compare  every  conceivable  external  ob- 
ject with  his  own  reproductive  structures,  so 
that  finally  every  part  of  his  environment  came 
to  be  a  male  or  female  sexual  symbol  {23;  24). 
It  was  but  a  short  step  from  similarity  of 
structure  to  similarity  of  function,  and  to  the 
identification  of  all  the  creative  processes  of 
nature  with  the  act  of  human  procreation,  as 
Westrop  {48)  and  Weir  {46)  have  remarked. 
This  worship  of  the  creative  principle,  thus  con- 
ceived as  having  its  supreme  expression  in  the 
reproductive  activities  of  man,  imposed  certain 
ceremonial  restraints  upon  excessive  sexual 
gratification,  and  thus  worked  incalculable  good 
to  its  followers,  until  it  became  decadent,  and 
its  rites  degenerated  into  orgies  of  licentious- 
ness. By  the  time  this  had  happened,  however, 
its  mission  had  been  accomplished,  and  other 
repressive  forces  had  taken  its  place  in  con- 
trolling the  instincts  and  impulses  of  mankind. 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  121 

The  second  factor  which  entered  into  the  con- 
trol of  the  sexual  function  was  a  more  direct 
result  of  the  supposed  state  of  mental  and 
physical  exhaustion  which  had  resulted  from 
his  excesses,  and  involved  a  complete  change 
in  his  attitude  toward  woman.  Originally  she 
had  been  his  mate,  his  free  and  equal  comrade 
in  the  precarious  struggle  for  existence;  then 
she  had  become  the  object  of  his  passions,  albeit 
an  unwilling  one,  for  not  easily  did  she  give  up 
her  inborn  periodicity  of  function  to  satisfy  his 
desire;  in  the  third  transition,  she  roused  the 
old  desire,  to  be  sure,  but  it  had  become  an 
ambivalent  emotion,  in  which  fear  was  an 
equally  strong  component,  for  were  not  all  his 
sufferings  due  to  contact  with  her  (^)? 

This  ambivalent  feeling  may  have  been  only 
partly  due  to  the  belief  that  she  had  infected 
him  with  bad  magic  which  was  the  cause  of  pro- 
longed depression  after  too  close  contact  with 
her,  a  view  which  Crawley  and  Frazer  support 
by  the  evidence  that  most  primitive  tribes  have 
strict  taboos  on  intercourse  before  battle  or  the 
hunt,  in  order  to  avoid  being  overcome  by  bad 
magic,  which  induces  womanly  weakness  {6;  l£). 


122  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

Elliott  Smith  thinks  this  ascribing  demonic  pow- 
ers to  woman  was  due  also  to  man's  discovery 
that  he  was  the  impregnating  being  in  the  great 
act  of  procreation,  in  which  he  conceived  him- 
self as  furnishing  the  living  spirit  of  the  new 
individual,  while  woman  contributed  only  the 
wicked  fleshly  body  in  which  this  divine  essence 
was  to  exist  {40). 

Whether  one  or,  as  is  most  probable,  both  of 
these  factors  entered  into  the  determination  of 
man's  attitude  toward  the  female,  the  result 
was  of  immense  importance  to  his  mode  of  liv- 
ing, for  there  grew  up  an  elaborate  system  of 
taboos  which  restricted  sexual  intercourse  still 
further,  and  thus  acted  as  an  auxiliary  to  the 
religious  control  which  had  also  been  imposed 
upon  the  procreative  life. 

There  was  still  another  controlling  agent 
which  served  to  coerce  the  sexual  instinct  from 
too  free  an  expression — the  horror  of  incestuous 
relationships  which  has  been  so  much  empha- 
sized by  the  Freudian  school.  Westermarck 
says  this  horror  was  instinctive  and  inborn 
(47) J  but  the  psychoanalysts  take  issue  with 
this  statement.    The  psychoanalytic  theory  has 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  123 

been  most  elaborately  developed  by  Otto  Rank, 
who  has  devoted  a  whole  volume  to  an  exposi- 
tion of  his  viewpoint,  which  is  that  incest  be- 
came taboo  only  as  continued  inbreeding  led  to 
a  degeneracy  which  the  savage  mind  interpreted 
as  a  sign  of  divine  anger.  In  proof  of  this  later 
development  of  the  incest  horror,  he  cites  the 
customs  of  certain  primitive  tribes,  in  which 
incest  is  not  at  all  or  only  partially  condemned ; 
the  ancient  religious  orgies  which  set  aside  the 
relationship  taboo  and  allowed  indiscriminate 
sexual  intercourse ;  and  finally  analyzes  a  great 
number  of  literary  productions,  including  the 
works  of  such  men  as  Shelley,  Goethe  and  Schil- 
ler, to  show  that  their  guiding  motif  is  the  sup- 
pressed love  for  mother  or  sister  (32).  The 
Freudian  proofs  of  the  incest-desire  are  bor- 
rowed from  analyses  of  abnormal  patients  who 
are  often  found  to  possess  ''father"  or  ''mother 
complexes,"  which  are  always  considered  spe- 
cifically sexual  in  nature,  although  Ferenczi 
(11)  and  Jung  (35)  have  defined  this  clinging  to 
the  parent  as  a  fear  reaction,  based  upon  the 
neurotic  inability  to  meet  the  crises  of  indepen- 
dent life. 


124  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

As  these  various  social  and  religious  factors 
united  to  control  the  reproductive  energy,  it  was 
not  simply  repressed,  but  was  deflected  into  new 
efferent  channels  of  vast  import  for  the  prog- 
ress of  mankind.  The  whole  trend  of  organic 
evolution  had  been  a  long-circuiting  of  the  sex- 
ual process,  from  the  specialization  of  germ- 
inal tissue  and  the  perfection  of  the  reproduc- 
tive organs  to  replace  the  simple  conjugation 
of  protozoan  life,  to  the  development  of  an 
elaborate  set  of  secondary  sexual  characters, 
of  epigamic  colors,  and  courtship  plays,  as  de- 
scribed by  Darwin  (9).  Just  as  in  other  ani- 
mals, the  relative  lack  of  sexuality  in  the  fe- 
male had  caused  the  overabundant  energy  of 
the  male  to  overflow  into  the  songs,  calls  and 
plays  of  the  mating  season,  which  were  pre- 
served by  natural  selection  because  they  served 
to  rouse  the  more  passive  female,  until  in  many 
cases  they  were  dissociated  from  their  sexual 
sources,  and  came  to  be  valuable  in  themselves, 
so  in  man  the  reproductive  energy  sought  other 
means  of  expression  than  its  primary  biological 
one. 

Thus  the  emotional  tension  of  man  found  re- 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  125 

lief  through  channels  made  facile  by  a  long 
phylogenetic  past,  so  that  tied  up  with  the  more 
crudely  sexual  rites  of  his  Phallic  religion,  such 
as  the  sacrifice  of  virginity  to  the  gods,  and  the 
orgiastic  rites  connected  with  the  sowing  of  the 
harvest,  came  a  more  spiritualized  form  of  the 
same  principle,  half  sexual  and  half  magical  in 
nature,  apparent  in  the  songs  and  dances  which 
were  the  chief  employment  of  primitive  people, 
as  Felix  Krueger  notes  (26)  and  which,  orig- 
inating as  an  outlet  for  sex  tension,  passed  over 
into  conventional  ritualism,  and  became  a  part 
of  the  folkways,  regarded  by  the  people  as  most 
potent  of  charms  to  secure  prosperity  and 
safety.  Traces  of  this  sexual  element  in  primi- 
tive agricultural  ceremonies  are  found  to-day> 
as  Skeat  has  reported  among  the  Malays  (57), 
Squire  in  the  British  Isles  (42)  and  Grimm 
among  the  Teutonic  peasantry  (17).  Frazer, 
too,  in  The  Golden  Bough,  has  collected  a  series 
of  these  magical  incantations  and  activities  in 
which  the  sex  factor  was  once  predominant. 
(13.)  But  long  after  their  source  in  sensualism 
and  superstition  was  forgotten,  the  song  and 
dance,  the  verse  and  picture-making,  thus  begun. 


126  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

continued  to  serve  as  an  effectual  outlet  for  the 
surplus  energ-y  of  the  human  race  as  it  strove 
to  make  these  arts  ever  higher  and  more  beauti- 
ful, until  they  came  to  be  cultivated  for  their 
own  sake  and  the  sexual  motif  back  of  them  was 
entirely  submerged  in  the  depths  of  the  sub- 
conscious psyche. 

Colin  A.  Scott,  in  a  paper  on  Sex  and  Art, 
has  traced  the  evolution  of  this  process  so  clear- 
ly that  it  is  well  worth  while  to  epitomize  his 
article  at  this  point.  (55.) 

The  primordial  source  of  the  sex  passion  as  of  the 
higher  creative  impulses  with  their  pleasurable  affec- 
tive tinge,  is  "the  fundamental  quality  of  erethism 
found  in  every  animal  cell.  .  .  .  The  amoeboid  move- 
ments of  the  Protozoa  show  this  function  in  opera- 
tion indifferently  at  any  portion  of  the  body  and 
before  the  differentiation  of  any  subservient  structure, 
whUe  the  alternate  erection  and  flaccidity  of  the  meta- 
zoan  cell,  shown  by  Mosso,  Hodge,  and  others  to  de- 
pend upon  nutrition  and  to  correspond  to  states  of 
activity  and  fatigue,  carry  this  function  into  every 
part  of  the  most  highly  developed  organism."  With 
the  gradual  differentiation  of  tissues  and  organs  and 
their  specialization  for  functions  originally  performed 
by  the  whole  unicellular  organism,  this  erethism  is 
localized  in  the  reproductive  organs  and  the  secondary 
erogenous  centers, — lips,  breast,  etc., — with  which  the 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  127 

former  are  cormected  by  the  sympathetic  nervous  sys- 
tem. In  the  higher  animals,  more  specifically  the 
mammals  and  especially  man,  the  central  nervous 
system  is  also  involved  in  the  incitation  and  inhibi- 
tion of  the  sexual  desires,  so  that  the  whole  neural 
tissue  finally  becomes  highly  sensitized  to  register  the 
organic  sensations  from  the  sexual  centres,  and  be- 
comes itself  permeated  with  similar  erethic  tendencies. 

"The  characteristic  feature  of  sex  is  the  law  of 
irradiation,  which  might  be  stated  as  follows: 

"Starting  from  the  act  of  copulation,  the  sexual 
instinct  tends  to  widen  and  become  more  complicated, 
until  the  whole  of  the  organism  is  involved  in  its 
activity. 

"This  law  is  a  necessary  outcome  of  specialization 
and  the  erethism  of  sex.  Sexual  union  is  properly 
the  climax  of  an  erethism  which  involves  the  whole 
economy,  but  more  especially  those  special  organs 
of  radiation,  the  brain  and  nervous  system. "  It  is  to 
the  end  of  spreading  and  enhancing  this  erethic  qual- 
ity that  the  lower  animals  have  developed  colors, 
odors,  calls,  etc.,  which  act  as  powerful  stimuli,  and 
have  been  favored  by  natural  selection  since  they 
have  been  important  factors  in  insuring  the  continua- 
tion of  the  species.  In  the  same  way  various  activi- 
ties have  been  fostered,  as  the  fighting  impulse,  which 
means  triumph  over  rivals  for  the  individual  possess- 
ing it  in  the  highest  degree,  and  the  art  of  court- 
ship, which  is  of  value  as  a  means  of  arousing  the 
more  passive  female,  and  securing  her  consent  to 
sexual  union.     Very  often,  these  activities  become 


128  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

more  or  less  dissociated  from  the  sexual  instinct  pure 
and  simple,  and  are  turned  to  other  ends  of  even  more 
vital  issue  to  the  race.  A  good  example  of  this  is 
the  evolution  of  the  parental  feeling  in  the  fish,  in 
many  species  of  which  the  male  not  only  fertilizes  the 
eggs  deposited  by  the  female,  but  guards  them  until 
hatched,  the  original  impetus  to  fertilization  having 
been  prolonged  to  form  the  matrix  of  the  parental 
instinct  which  becomes  so  complicated  in  higher  mem- 
bers of  the  animal  kingdom. 

In  man,  this  tendency  to  dissociation  has  been  a 
prime  factor  in  the  growth  of  art,  music,  literature 
and  other  intellectual  activities.  From  the  all-per- 
vading idea  of  sex  which  once  obsessed  the  human 
species,  and  found  expression  in  the  fetishisms  to 
which  the  neurotic  of  to-day  reverts  once  more,  and 
in  the  phallic  cults  personifying  the  universe  sexually, 
there  came  into  being  an  aesthetic  emotion  which  re- 
sulted in  a  love  of  the  beautiful  apart  from  its  exist- 
ence as  an  erotic  stimulus,  while  an  increasingly  vague 
symbolization  in  worship  permitted  the  development 
of  a  religious!  ardor  in  which  the  sex  element  was  no 
longer  obvious,  though  still  the  moving  force.  So, 
too,  the  movements  and  calls  of  the  courtship  period 
were  carried  over  as  pleasurable  in  themselves,  and 
were  woven  into  the  mores  of  the  people  in  dance 
and  song.  Thus  the  neural  erethism  originally  in- 
separable from  the  sexual  erethism  became  almost  as 
intense  a  phenomenon  as  the  latter,  so  that  intellec- 
tual creativeness  came  to  be  permeated   with  the 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  129 

ecstatic  enjoyment  which  had  formerly  been  confined 
to  the  biological  level,  and  formed  a  distinct  end  in 
itself. 

In  a  simpler  manner,  unhampered  by  the 
technicalities  of  scientific  discussion,  the  poetic 
intuition  of  Don  Marquis  has  also  expressed  the 
fundamental  unity  of  the  sexual  emotion  with 
the  appreciation  of  beauty  and  the  worship  of 
God. 

THE  NAME 

It  shifts  and  shifts  from  form  to  form, 

It  drifts  and  darkles,  gleams  and  glows; 
It  is  the  passion  of  the  storm, 

The  poignance  of  the  rose; 
Through    changing   shapes,    through    devious    ways, 

By  noon  or  night,  through  cloud  or  flame, 
My  heart  has  followed  all  my  days 

Something  I  cannot  name. 

In  sunlight  on  some  woman's  hair, 

Or  starlight  in  some  woman's  eyne, 
Or  in  low  laughter,  smothered  where 

Her  red  lips  wedded  mine, 
My  heart  hath  known  and  thrilled  to  know, 

This  unnamed  presence  that  it  sought ; 
And  when  my  heart  hath  found  it  so, 

'  *  Love  is  the  name, ' '  I  thought. 


130  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

Sometimes  when  sudden  afterglows 

In  futile  glory'  storm  the  skies, 
Within  their  transient  gold  and  rose 

The  secret  stirs  and  dies; 
Or  when  the  trampling  morn  walks  o'er 

The  troubled  seas,  with  feet  of  flame. 
My  awed  heart  whispers,  "Ask  no  more, 

For  beauty  is  the  name ! " 

Or  dreaming  in  old  chapels  where 

The  dim  aisles  pulse  with  murmuxings 
That  part  are  music,  part  are  prayer — 

(Or  rush  of  hidden  wings) 
Sometimes  I  lift  a  startled  head 

To  some  saint's  carven  countenance, 
Half  fancying  that  the  lips  have  said, 

* '  All  names  mean  God,  perchance ! ' ' 

(Don  Marquis  in  Dreams  amd  Bust.) 

The  importance  of  this  substitution  of  a 
higher  nervous  erethism  for  the  more  primitive 
sexual  form  cannot  be  overestimated  as  it  ap- 
plies to  the  life  of  the  adolescent  girl.  For 
adolescence,  in  either  sex,  is  a  period  of  intense 
mental  activity,  and  contains  almost  unlimited 
possibilities  for  the  development  of  the  higher 
intellectual  and  emotional  processes.  The  fire 
of  sex  burns  high,  and  being  wisely  repressed 
by  social  traditions  and  customs,  flows  easily 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  131 

into  channels  which  have  become  normal  neural 
pathways  through  the  long  generations  when 
the  young  human  race  was  evolving  and  per- 
fecting the  arts  of  dance,  song,  poetry,  and  pic- 
ture-making. Jung,  in  his  analysis  of  Miss 
Miller,  which  he  aptly  named  Wandlungen  und 
Symbole  der  Libido,  showed  how  the  awakening 
sexuality  of  this  young  girl  was  expressed  in 
ways  which  had"  been  laboriously  worked  out  in 
the  history  of  the  race,  so  that  her  poems  were 
simply  another  version  of  the  ancient  myths 
created  by  the  same  human  longings  in  other 
days.  (25.) 

The  adolescent  longs  for  the  great  emotional 
experiences  to  which  the  awakening  sexual  life 
inclines,  but  having  no  real  experience  by  which 
to  gauge  an  idea  of  the  specific  sensation  for 
which  the  being  craves,  finds  complete  satisfac- 
tion in  the  erethic  glow  of  religious  ecstasy  or  in 
the  esthetic  appreciation  and  creative  ardor 
which  surrounds  intellectual  work,  whatever  the 
form  it  takes.  Especially  is  this  true  of  the 
girl,  for  much  less  than  the  boy  does  she  realize 
that  her  vague  longings  and  aspirations  have 
anything  even  remotely  sexual  in  their  compo- 


132  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

sition,  and  turns  so  much  the  more  readily  to 
the  emotional  outlets  of  religion  and  art  as  a 
means  of  satisfaction. 

The  pedagogical  significance  of  this  erethic 
quality  of  the  adolescent  mind  cannot  be  over- 
emphasized. With  our  present  fetishistic  at- 
titude toward  all  sorts  of  educational  schemes 
which  make  for  economic  efficiency',  with  our 
emphasis  on  vocational  guidance  and  business 
training,  we  are  apt  to  forget  those  other  things 
which  a  well-balanced  educational  system  must 
inculcate,  a  strong  moral  fibre  against  the  dis- 
couragements and  temptations  of  daily  life,  and 
a  capacity  for  long  and  sustained  labor  which 
the  knowledge  of  one 's  trade  alone  cannot  give. 
In  the  plastic  stage  of  adolescence  will  be 
formed  the  habits  which  will  govern  the  later 
life,  and  it  rests  with  the  parent  and  teacher 
to  so  guide  the  youthful  minds  that  this  innate 
tendency  to  utilize  the  sexual  energy  in  more 
socialized  forms  of  erethism  shall  be  expanded 
to  its  utmost  limit.  If  the  habit  of  thus  calling 
upon  the  racial  powers  inherent  in  individual 
life  be  formed  at  this  time,  we  shall  find  in  later 
life,  when  we  are  called  upon  to  carry  out  tasks 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  133 

which  seem  beyond  our  strength,  that  we  have 
access  to  an  unsuspected  store  of  energy,  which 
must  remain  untapped  for  these  higher  pur- 
poses unless  in  adolescence  its  strength  has 
been  turned  into  channels  which  a  long  evolu- 
tionary history  has  indicated. 

Sexual  hygiene  also  demands  the  accomplish- 
ment of  this  sublimative  process,  for  there  is 
no  surer  way  to  protect  the  adolescent  from 
temptation  then  to  drain  the  waves  of  sexual 
emotion  into  those  channels  which  have  proven 
to  be  satisfactory  substitutes  for  the  procreative 
act  in  the  experience  of  the  race.  Unless  this 
prolongation  of  adolescence  and  the  sublimation 
of  its  crude  instinctive  forces  be  accomplished, 
there  can  be  no  hope  of  attainment  to  a  general 
level  of  culture  where  the  powers  of  the  human 
race  will  be  used  to  the  best  social  advantage, 
nor  will  there  be  in  individual  existence  any 
taste  of  these  supreme  pleasures  which  are  the 
joy  of  the  creative  genius,  and  of  aesthetic  and 
religious  emotions. 

At  adolescence,  as  a  recent  Spanish  author, 
Senor  Mercante,  has  emphasized,  there  should 
be  a  radical  change  in  the  whole  educational 


134  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

program.  The  time  for  drill  is  over,  now;  the 
soul  of  youth  is  essentially  active,  and  possesses 
a  craving  for  excitement  that  will  not  be  de- 
nied, but  finds  satisfaction  in  devious  ways 
when  home  and  school  are  not  wise  enough  to 
meet  its  needs.  The  imagination  runs  riot,  too, 
and  must  be  guided  into  creative  channels,  lest 
it  waste  its  energies  in  delusion  and  dream. 
Here,  artistic  talents  and  the  study  of  literature 
play  an  important  role,  for  the  aesthetic  emo- 
tion on  either  the  creative  or  more  passive  ap- 
preciative side  provides  the  natural  field  for 
the  play  of  fancy. 

''In  art,"  says  James  Mark  Baldwin,  in  his 
Genetic  Theory  of  Reality,  ''the  imagination 
finds  its  synthetic  and  perfect  role;  the  things 
of  knowledge  and  will,  taken  up  by  the  imagina- 
tion, fuse  in  the  immediacy  of  the  values  of  feel- 
ing, and  the  two  great  currents  of  affectiv- 
ism,  the  mystical  and  rational,  fall  together" 
{2:  p.  311). 

Again,  the  newly  awakened  gregarious  nature 
of  the  adolescent  requires  a  sympathetic  inter- 
pretation as  the  prime  requisite  of  literary  in- 
struction, for  there  exists  within  the  whole  being 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  135 

a  desire  to  enter  into  the  myriad  life  of  the  race 
that  is  gone  before,  and  the  heroes  and  heroines 
of  literature  offer  one  means  of  realizing  this 
wish,  in  so  far  as  the  teacher  is  skilful  enough 
to  encourage  the  child  'to  suifer  and  enjoy 
vicariously  through  them.  As  Mrs.  Heniger  has 
pointed  out  in  her  recent  publication,  The  King- 
dom of  the  Child: 

''It  is  far  more  important  to  universalize  the 
sympathies  of  a  child  by  bringing  him  into  per- 
sonal relations  with  characters  in  books  and 
plays  than  it  is  to  have  him  know  that  such  or 
such  a  verse  is  written  in  iambic  tetrameter. 
.  .  .  The  instinct  of  youth  for  the  beauty  and 
vividness  of  expression,  boyhood  and  girlhood's 
intuitive  feeling  that  behind  the  message  a  hu- 
man soul  exists,  and  youth's  desire  to  reincar- 
nate the  soul  through  the  message,  all  furnish 
us  with  our  best  guides  on  the  pathway  of  lit- 
erary instruction."  {22:  pp.  105-106.) 

It  is  this' humanistic  element  which  must  per- 
vade the  entire  high  school  curriculum.  The 
girl  must  no  longer  be  molded  into  the  rigid 
school  system,  but  the  educational  plan  itself 
must  become  plastic,  and  easily  adaptable  to  the 


136  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

fundamental  nature  of  adolescence  with  its  ever 
varying  needs.  We  have  spent  much  valuable 
time  and  energy  in  our  emphatic  denunciations 
of  kultur,  and  acclamation  of  culture;  let  us 
utilize  all  this  emotion  in  the  remodelling  of  our 
secondary  schools  in  accordance  with  the  ideals 
thus  loudly  proclaimed. 

In  connection  with  our  technical  laboratory 
work  in  physics  or  chemistry,  the  student  must 
be  infused  with  a  sympathy  and  admiration  for 
the  keen  minds  and  unique  personalities  which 
are  connected  with  the  development  of  these 
sciences.  History  must  be  taught  not  as  the 
rise  and  fall  of  empires,  but  as  the  thrilling, 
glowing  story  of  the  human  race,  prefacing  the 
tales  of  Greece  and  Rome  with  an  account  of  the 
origins  of  mankind,  and  his  primitive  life  and 
social  organizations.  In  the  translations  of  lan- 
guages, not  the  grammatical  accuracy,  but  the 
spirit  of  the  author  and  his  characters,  should 
be  the  chief  end  and  aim,  while  even  mathe- 
matics might  be  somewhat  illuminated  by  little 
diversions  into  the  biographies  of  those  who 
first  formulated  its  principles.  The  adolescent 
love  of  nature  should  be  reinforced,  not  dulled, 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  137 

by  the  study  of  biology,  as  the  science  of  nat- 
ural life  activities,  and  of  the  evolution  of  the 
stirp.  Thus  presented,  it  becomes  most  impor- 
tant, for  in  this  manner  it  becomes  the  founda- 
tion for  the  great  cosmic  view  which  sees  man 
as  one  with  all  existence,  and  which,  in  its  spirit 
of  fraternity,  is  the  ultimate  form  of  religious 
emotion. 

Just  as  the  boy  has  a  motor  outlet  for  his 
energies  in  his  games,  which  are  more  or  less 
a  conventionalized  recapitulation  of  old  racial 
habits,  so  the  girl  must  be  furnished  with  sim- 
ilar efferent  channels.  The  girls '  camps  move- 
ment is  an  expression  of  the  realization  of  this 
necessity,  but  these  serve  only  for  the  short 
summer  season.  In  school  time,  the  folk  dances, 
rightly  treated,  are  the  ideal  physical  activity, 
but  they  must  never  be  instituted  as  mere  exer- 
cises. The  girl  must  know  the  origin  and  mean- 
ing of  each,  so  that  she  enters  into  its  very 
spirit,  and  creates  her  dance  as  she  moves  in 
rhythmic  cadence  to  its  music.  (8.) 

All  this  is  the  keynote  of  the  training  which 
is  proper  for  the  adolescent  girl,  as  for  the 
boy, — a  vitalization  of  the  studies  which  have 


138  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

long  been  dished  up  as  dead  sea  fruit,  and  a 
utilization  of  the  eager  creative  imagination  of 
youth  in  this  life-giving  process.  Herein  we  are 
accomplishing  a  double  purpose,  since  at  the 
same  time  that  we  are  establishing  the  habit  of 
sublimation  and  developing  the  higher  neural 
erethisms  to  their  utmost  limit,  we  are  also  ful- 
filling the  more  utilitarian  end  and  aim  of  edu- 
cation, and  fixing  the  facts  we  are  attempting  to 
impress  upon  the  childish  mind  more  firmly  than 
ever  before. 

But  in  a  still  deeper  way  is  it  necessary  to 
cherish  aild  encourage  the  sublimative  proc- 
esses, for  only  here  may  be  found  an  adequate 
solution  of  the  conflict  which  tears  the  adoles- 
cent soul.  For  at  the  same  time  that  all  these 
activities  which  were  developed  in  the  youth 
of  the  race,  and  which  are  most  apparent  in  the 
youth  of  the  individual,  serve  to  satisfy  the 
sexual  desires,  so,  too,  they  gratify  the  will  to 
power,  and  the  egoistic  tendencies  to  an  equal 
or  even  greater  degree. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  just  as  the  sexual 
ecstasy  releases  the  individual  from  all  con- 
sciousness of  independent  existence,  with  its 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  139 

feelings  of  inability  and  weakness,  so  these  sub- 
stitutive activities  raise  him  above  the  plane  of  ^ 
everyday  life  with  its  impress  of  impotency  and 
inferiority.  It  is  the  ego  that  rejoices  in  the 
applause  after  the  dramatic  representation;  it 
is  the  sense  of  power  that  is  fulfilled  by  the  con- 
templation of  a  finished  poem  or  picture,  a 
sense  which  is  enhanced  still  more  if  praise  be 
given  by  others  who  see  the  work;  and  the  re- 
ligious emotion  is  perhaps  more  powerful  than 
any  other  to  lift  the  devotee  above  and  beyond 
the  limitations  of  his  ovm  narrow  personality, 
as  the  mystics  of  old  knew  when  they  sought  to 
revel  in  the  ecstatic  feeling  of  being  united  with 
God  himself. 

In  the  final  analysis,  however,  it  is  not  the 
praise  of  others  which  is  the  greatest  satisfac- 
tion of  the  desire  for  power,  it  is  the  inner  feel- 
ing of  strength  and  force  which  sweeps  away 
the  oppressive  sense  of  inferiority  and  limita- 
tion. And  this  subjective  state  is  never  more 
potent  than  in  the  glow  of  the  neural  erethism 
which  is  the  basis  of  the  religious  or  aesthetic 
ecstasy.  The  savage  felt  the  thrill  of  this  inner 
power,  and  believed  it  to  be  the  expression  of  a 


140  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

superhuman  force,  manifesting  itself  in  his  in- 
dividual existence.  To-day  we  know  that  it 
comes  from  the  subconscious  energy  of  the  race, 
and  is  a  part  of  the  great  elan  vital  which  has 
been  accumulated  and  passed  on  through  the 
germ  plasm  of  countless  generations ;  but  as  we 
come  in  contact  with  it  and  feel  its  thrilling 
force,  we,  too,  know  that  we  bear  within  us  a 
strength  beyond  our  own. 

Algernon  Blackwood,  in  his  Garden  of  Sur- 
vival, has  voiced  this  modern  conception  in  al- 
most poetic  language :  ' '  Behind  every  thrill  of 
beauty  stand  the  countless  brave  souls  who  have 
lived  it  in  their  lives.  They  have  entered  the 
mighty  rhythm  that  floats  the  spiral  nebulae  in 
space,  as  it  turns  the  little  aspiring  nautilus  in 
the  depths  of  the  sea.  Having  felt  this  worship 
which  is  love  of  beauty,  they  are  linked  to  the 
power  that  drives  the  universe  toward  perfec- 
tion, the  power  that  knocks  in  a  million  unad- 
vertised  forms  at  every  human  heart,  and  that  is 
God." 

It  is  in  this  power  of  sublimation,  which  satis- 
fies the  individual  the  more  fully  as  it  absorbs 
more  and  more  of  the  great  fund  of  racial  en- 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  141 

ergy,  and  thus  sweeps  each  little  personality 
into  the  larger  organic  whole  of  all  humanity 
and  of  the  universe,  that  we  have  the  temporary 
solution  of  the  problem  of  adjustment  which 
makes  life  so  difficult  for  the  adolescent  girL 
For  some,  indeed,  it  must  become  a  permanent 
solution  by  being  infinitely  broadened  and 
woven  into  the  work  and  social  life,  for  to  some 
will  be  denied  the  biological  expressions  of  the 
womanly  nature  in  the  great  functions  of  love 
and  maternity. 

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Psychology.     74  pp.     Jour.  Nerv.  &  Ment.  Disease 
Pub.  Co.    N.  Y.,  1913. 

2.  Baldwin,   James  Mark.     Genetic  Theory  of  Reality. 

335  pp.    Putnam's  Sons.    N.  Y.,  1915. 

3.  Brown,    Sanger.      Sex    Worship    and    Symbolism    in 

Primitive  Races.    140  pp.    Badger.    Boston,  1916. 

4.  Carpenter,   Edward.     The   Gods  as   Embodiments   of 

the  Race  Memories.    Pp.  259-279.    Hibbert  Jour,  II, 
1904. 

5.  Corin,  James.     Mating,  Maniage  and  the  Status  of 

Woman.    177  pp.    Walter  Scott  Pub,  Co,    London, 
1910. 

6.  Crawley,  Ernest.     The  Mystic  Rose.     492  pp.     Mae- 

millan,    N.  Y,,  1902. 


142  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

7.  Crile,  Geo.  W.     Origin  and  Nature  of  the  Emotions. 

240  pp.    W.  B.  Saunders  Co.    Phil.  &  Lond.,  1915. 

8.  Curtis,  Eleanor  W.    The  Dramatic  Instinct  in  Educa- 

tion.    246  pp.    Houghton,  Mifflin  Co.    N.  Y.,  1914. 

9.  DaiTvin,  Charles.     The  Descent  of  Man  and  Selection 

in  Relation  to  Sex.    688  pp.    Appleton.    N.  Y.,  1903. 

10.  Ellis,  Havelock.     Psychology  of  Sex.     Vol.  II.     314 

pp.    F.  A.  Davis  Co.    Phil.,  1900. 

11.  Ferenczi,  Sandor.     Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis. 

288  pp.    Badger.    Boston,  1916. 

12.  Frazer,  J.  G.     The  Golden  Bough,  Part  II:    Taboo 

and  the  Perils  of  the   Soul.    446   pp.     Macmillan. 
London,  1911. 

13.    .    The  Golden  Bough.    Part  V.    Spirits  of 

the  Com  and  of  the  Wild.    Vol.  I.    319  pp.    Mac- 
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14.  Freud,  Sigmund.     Totem  and  Taboo.     265  pp.     Mof- 

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15.  Geddes  and   Thompson.     Problems  of  Sex.     52   pp. 

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16.    .     Evolution  of  Sex.    322  pp.     Scribner's. 

N.  Y.,  1901. 

17.  Grimm,    Jacob.      Teutonic   Mythology.     I.     437   pp. 

Geo.  Bell  &  Sons.     London,  1882. 

18.  Groos,  Karl.    The  Play  of  Animals.    341  pp.    Apple- 

ton.    N.  Y.,  1898. 

19.  Grosse,  Ernst.    Die  Anfange  der  Kunst.  301  pp.  Paul 

Siebeck.     Freiburg  &  Leipzig,  1894. 

20.  Howard,  Clifford.    Sex  Worship.    167  pp.    Washing- 

ton, D.  C,  1897. 

21.  Hirn,  Y.     The  Origins  of  Art.     331  pp.     Macmillan. 

N.  Y.,  1900. 

22.  Heniger,  Alice  Minnie  Herst.     The  Kingdom  of  the 

Child.    173  pp.    Dutton  &  Co.    N.  Y.,  1918. 


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23.  Inman,  Thos.     Ancient  Pagan  and  Modern  Christian 

Symbols.    147  pp.    N.  Y.,  1884. 

24.  Jennings,  Hargrave.     Phallicism.     298  pp.     Redway. 

Lond.,  1884. 

25.  Jmig,  C.  G.    Psychology  of  the  Unconscious.     (Wand- 

lungen  und  Symbole  der  Libido.)     566  pp.     Moffat, 
Yard  &  Co.    N.  Y.,  1916. 

26.  Krueger,  Felix.     Magic  Ritual  in  Primitive  Industry 

and  Agriculture.    Am.  Jour.  Psy.    V.  24,  April,  1913. 

27.  Mason,  Otis  T.    Woman's  Share  in  Primitive  Culture. 

295  pp.    Appleton.    N.  Y.,  1889. 

28.  Mercante,  Victor.    La  Crisis  de  la  Pubertad.     Cabaut 

y  Cia.    437  pp.    Buenos  Aires,  1918. 

29.  Parke,  J.  R.     Human  Sexuality.     476  pp.     Profes- 

sional Pub.  Co.    Phil.,  1906. 

30.  Ploss,  H.    Das  Weib.    2  vols.    Grieben,  Leipzig,  1913. 

31.  Poulton,  Edward  B.     Essays  on  Evolution.     479  pp. 

Clarendon  Press.     Oxford,  1908. 

32.  Rank,  Otto.    Das  Inzest-Motiv  in  Dichtung  und  Sage. 

685  pp.    Franz  Denticke.    Leipzig  und  Wien,  1912. 

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N.  Y.,  1889. 

35.  Scott,  Colin  A.     Sex  and  Art.     Pp.  153-226.     Am. 

Jour.  Psy.    VII,  2.    Jan.,  1896. 

36.  Silberer,   Herbert.     Problems   of   Mysticism   and   Its 

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N.  Y.,  1900. 

38.  Skyde,  Margaret.    From  the  Gray  Dawn  of  Life.    51 

pp.     Beiter.    Baltimore,  1918. 


144  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

39.  Smith,  Frederick.     The  Higher  Powers  of  Man.     232 

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Boston,  1907. 

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CHAPTER  V 

PATHOLOGICAL  MANIFESTATIONS   OF   LIBIDO   IN 
ADOLESCENT  GIRLS 

Hysteria, — Freudian  statement;  Healey  on  delinquency  of 
hysterical  girls;  Mediumship  in  adolescent  girls;  G.  S. 
Hall's  study  of  a  budding  medium;  Dissociated  per- 
sonality; Pathological  lying;  Religious  forms  of  hys- 
teria; Hauptmann's  Hannele  and  St.  Theresa:  Jung's 
theory  of  Dementia  Praecox;  Case  study  of  D.  P.  by 
Dr.  Lucile  Dooley;  Borderline  eases;  Therapeutic 
measures. 

If  the  tendency  of  the  sexual  energy  to  over- 
flow into  substitute  activities  were  confined  to 
higher  artistic  and  religious  sublimations,  the:::^^ 
problem  of  the  adolescent  girl  would  be  much 
simplified,  but  unfortunately,  the  erotic  vicari- 
ates, under  certain  conditions,  become  distinctly 
pathological  in  character,  and  may  be  injurious 
to  both  the  individual  and  society.  The  adoles- 
cent period  thus  becomes  a  critical  time  in  the 
girl's  life,  for  recent  psychological  and  medical 
studies  have  shown  that  the  beginning  of  cer- 

145 


H6  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

tain  mental  diseases,  such  as  hysteria  and  de- 
mentia praecox,  are  coincident  with  the  onset  of 
puberty,  while  a  host  of  minor  abnormalities 
are  most  likely  to  make  their  appearance  at  this 
a^e. 

The  biological  basis  for  the  incidence  of  these 
pathological  phenomena  is  the  inheritance  of 
an  unstable  and  oversensitive  nervous  system, 
which  is  not  able  to  endure  the  strain  of  the 
mental  conflict  which  is  the  psychic  side  of 
adolescent  phenomena.  But  in  most  instances, 
it  is  the  nature  of  the  environmental  stimuli 
that  determines  whether  the  conversion  of  the 
sexual  energy  shall  be  upward  or  downward.}  It 
becomes  necessary,  therefore,  to  consider  briefly 
the  abnormalities  of  the  mental  processes  pecu- 
liar to  adolescence,  with  a  view  to  perceiving  the 
remedial  and  preventive  measures  necessary  to 
conserve  the  health  of  the  individual,  and  utilize 
the  energy  thus  going  to  waste  for  social  pur- 
poses. 

Perhaps  the  most  prevalent  type  of  adoles- 
cent abnormality  is  the  hysterical  symptom, 
which  may  assume  any  one  of  many  widely  dif- 
fering forms.    In  its  commonest  manifestation 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  147 

it  is  characterized  by  a  conversion  downwards 
of  the  libido,  so  that  its  energy  is  expressed 
through  some  irrelevant  activity,  which  by  ob- 
scure associative  processes  has  come  to  be  a 
vicariate  for  the  real  psychic  motive,  which 
Freud  claims  is  always  an  erotic  desire.  In 
proof  of  the  latter  statement,  Freud  has  col- 
lected a  series  of  detailed  analyses  of  hysterical 
girls  (11),  in  which  he  shows  the  distinctly  sex- 
ual etiology  of  the  hysterical  symptoms.  The 
sexual  trauma  is  sometimes  of  a  physical  na- 
ture, consisting  of  childish  experience,  brutal 
assault,  etc.,  but  more  often  is  of  a  purely 
psychological  character,  and  is  caused  by  pre- 
mature or  too  long  delayed  sexual  enlighten- 
ment, secured  in  an  unpleasant  manner,  or  in 
the  bestowal  of  affection  where  social  sanctions 
forbid. 

In  any  case,  the  crucial  feature  is  the  at- 
tempt to  forget  the  experience,  and  everything 
associated  with  it,  so  that  it  becomes  repressed 
from  the  conscious  thought  processes  of  the 
psyche,  but  being  retained  in  the  unconscious 
substrata  of  the  mind,  forms  a  nuclear  center 
which  gathers  to  itself  an  increasing  energetic 


148  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

force  as  allied  experiences  are  successively  re- 
pressed and  unite  with  it.  The  whole  ''com- 
plex" thus  formed  finally  seeks  an  efferent 
outlet  through  some  physical  symptom,  whether 
it  be  the  hysterical  pain,  paralysis  of  some  part 
of  the  body,  or  some  convulsive  motor  habit, 
commonly  known  as  a  'Hie."  For  concrete 
cases  which  furnish  detailed  accounts  of  the 
hysterical  mechanism,  the  reader  is  referred  to 
the  various  psychoanalytic  studies  of  Freud, 
Breuer,  Jung,  Janet,  and  their  co-workers. 

William  Healey  confirms  the  Freudian  theory 
of  hysteria  when  he  declares  that  the  hysteri- 
cal type  of  girl  figures  prominently  in  court  in 
cases  of  false  accusation,  and  concludes  that 
she  is  actTiated~by  the  subconscious  desire  to 
suffer  the  sexual  assaults  of  which  she  com- 
plains. (15.)  He  also  shows  that  the  suggest- 
ible hysterical  temperament  tends  to  solve  the 
mental  conflict  of  adolescence,  with  its  em- 
phasis on  the  sexual  factor,  by  substituting  such 
criminal  acts  as  lying  and  stealing  for  the 
sexual  delinquencies  to  which  bad  companions 
incite.    One  of  the  cases  which  he  describes  in 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  149 

this  connection  may  well  be  epitomized  here. 

Girl  of  twelve.  Fifth  grade  in  school;  scholarship 
good.  Not  very  well  physically.  Heredity  free  from 
insanity,  feeble-mindedness  and  epilepsy.  Mother 
dead;  brought  up  by  grandmother.  Three  years  ago 
began  to  lie  and  steal.  Questioning  elicited  the  fol- 
lowing facts: 

"The  boy  in  our  street,  Sam  S.,  he's  about  fifteen. 
Teacher  said  he  shouldn't  go  to  school  any  more.  He 
said  I  should  take  things.  I  used  to  see  him  when  I 
went  roller  skating,  and  when  I  went  to  the  pasture 
on  the  prairie  with  the  girl  next  door  for  the  cow. 
Sam  used  to  talk  to  her,  too.  He  asked  her  to  go 
out  in  the  bushes  with  him.  He  used  to  say  bad  words 
to  us.  Sometimes  when  I  think  about  the  words  I  get  a 
headache  and  feel  as  if  I'd  got  to  take  things.  Never 
thought  that  word  had  anything  to  do  with  babies. 
Couldn't  find  out  anything  about  babies." 

From  the  investigation  of  numerous  cases 
similar  to  this,  Healey  shows  the  immense  sig- 
nificance of  unsatisfied  sexual  curiosity  or  im- 
proper enlightenment  as  a  factor  of  the  mental 
conflict  which  tears  the  oversensitive  adolescent 
soul,  and  predisposes  to  neuroticism  or  crime. 
That  it  may  have  other  effects,  equally  disas- 


150  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

trous,  will  be  apparent  in  a  later  part  of  our 
•discussion. 

Aside  from  the  purely  sexual  factor  in  the 
etiology  of  the  hysterical  malady,  is  a  motive 
which  is  in  a  sense  closely  connected  with  the 
former,  yet  which  is  deserving  of  separate  men- 
tion— the  desire  for  attention.  In  another  rela- 
tion, Adler  has  emphasized  this  characteristic 
of  the  neurotic  affliction,  for  in  no  other  way, 
as  he  points  out,  can  the  individual  become  the 
center  of  affairs  so  easily  and  permanently. 
(1.)  This  is  undoubtedly  a  predominant  motive 
in  the  incipient  stages  of  the  development  of 
those  pathological  cases  whose  hysterical  tem- 
perament is  expressed  in  the  weird  ability  to 
assume  the  clairvoyant  state,  or  in  the  develop- 
ment of  mediumistic  powers. 

Podmore  has  given  a  detailed  account  of  the 
spiritistic  phenomena  connected  with  the  Fox 
sisters  and  many  other  girk  during  the  last 
half  of  the  nineteenth  century  (34),  and  Barrett, 
with  his  investigations  of  the  Creery  sisters 
(5),  as  well  as  other  scientists  have  reported 
interesting  cases.  From  the  viewpoint  of  a 
causal  analysis,  however,  Pres.  Hall's  study  of 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  151 

''A  Medium  in  the  Bud"  is  well  worth  a  brief 
review,  since  it  not  only  shows  the  typical 
phenomena  of  the  mediumistic  powers,  but  also 
makes  very  evident  the  hysterical  motivations 
back  of  them.    {13.) 

The  mediumship  of  the  young  girl  in  question  was  so 
much  in  the  incipient  stages  that  she  had  not  yet 
gotten  to  the  point  of  losing  herself  in  trances,  and 
showed  very  plainly  that  she  was  influenced  by  the 
suggestions  conveyed  by  her  interrogators.  The  ma- 
trix in  which  this  nascent  mediumship  arose  shows 
clearly  the  mechanisms  which  went  into  its  develop- 
ment. The  girl,  who  is  called  Annie,  lived  in  a  small 
country  town,  more  or  less  isolated  from  neighbors, 
because  her  mother,  on  becoming  estranged  from  her 
husband,  and  being  very  sensitive  to  gossip,  had  with- 
drawn wholly  from  the  social  life  of  the  community. 
The  girl  was  bright  and  impressionable ;  she  had  done 
a  great  deal  of  miscellaneous  reading,  and  had  al- 
lowed her  imagination  to  run  riot  as  only  adolescents 
can  do,  until  the  world  of  her  reveries  had  become 
the  realest  thing  of  her  existence.  Her  mother  was 
credited  with  the  possession  of  spiritistic  powers,  and 
was  ever  on  the  alert  to  detect  any  heredity  of  these 
on  the  part  of  her  daughter.  Then  came  a  visit  to  a 
famous  medium,  who  insisted  that  spirits  were  eager 
to  assume  Annie 's  control  and  guidance,  so  that  it  was 
little  wonder  that  her  adolescent  dreams  of  greatness 


152  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

took  this  shape,  and  that  she  began  to  cultivate  me- 
diumistic  powers. 

Already  the  girl  had  formulated  a  theory  that  all 
was  prepared  among  the  Heavenly  hosts  for  the  ful- 
filment of  God's  far-reaching  plans,  and  only  the 
means  was  necessary  for  the  inauguration  of  a  new 
era  on  earth  and  in  Heaven.  And  the  agent  of  this 
great  regeneration  would  be  a  young  girl,  with  whom 
the  spirits  would  hold  communication,  and  whom 
they  would  lead  to  be  a  redeemer  of  the  people.  Once 
these  dreams  came  to  be  implicitly  and  naively  be- 
lieved by  Annie,  it  was  only  a  short  step  to  see  her- 
self as  the  chosen  instrument  of  God,  a  belief  which 
was  acclaimed  with  enthusiasm  and  tenderly  fostered 
by  her  mother.  Thus  there  seemed  for  a  long  time 
no  sex  motivation,  but  only  an  attempt  to  save  the 
sense  of  personal  value  amid  the  neglect  and  criticism 
of  her  neighbors  by  the  creation  of  an  inner  world 
which  in  the  magnificence  of  its  far-fiung  imagery 
more  than  made  up  for  all  that  she  missed  in  the 
outer  reality,  from  which  she  had  thus  taken  flight. 
Her  only  purpose  in  coming  to  Dr.  Hall  seemed  to 
be  simply  a  desire  to  convince  the  scientific  world  that 
she  was  truly  the  chosen  one  of  God  for  the  new 
revelation,  and  to  receive  confirmation  of  her  dreams, 
since  she  was  still  tortured  by  lingering  doubts  as  to 
their  reality. 

It  was  only  after  the  invention  of  fictitious  spirits 
had  proven  to  the  investigators  that  the  mediumship 
was  a  simple  acceptation  of  suggestion,  that  the 
erotic  element  began  to  appear.    The  girl  insisted  in 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  153 

her  belief  in  her  powers,  even  after  being  caught  re- 
sponding to  misleading  statements  time  and  time 
again,  and  her  "control"  now  began  to  tell  the  audi- 
tors the  most  intimate  secrets  of  the  medium's  heart- 
Apparently  under  the  impulsion  of  her  guiding  spirit, 
and  quite  without  her  own  volition,  Annie  confessed 
that  her  true  motive  in  asking  for  the  hearings  had 
been  the  desire  to  have  a  certain  man  of  her  acquaint- 
ance sit  at  the  investigations,  in  order  that  he  might 
be  impressed  with  her  sagacity  and  importance.  It 
was  because  of  the  cloud  the  gossip  had  created,  she 
fancied,  that  this  man  proved  so  indifferent,  and  she 
felt  sure  that  if  he  once  saw  her  with  the  learned 
men  taking  notes  as  she  displays  her  mediumistic 
powers,  her  full  worth  would  dawn  upon  him.  Thus 
the  whole  fantasy  seemed  to  have  been  evolved  in  or- 
der to  place  her  upon  an  equal  footing  with  the  man 
whom  she  desired  should  not  regard  her  as  a  social 
inferior,  and  the  basic  motive  was,  after  all,  no  power 
complex,  but  the  woman 's  age-old  longing  for  a  mate. 
After  many  more  attempts  to  gain  the  loved  one's 
interest  through  her  spirit  communication,  Annie  be- 
came discouraged  by  her  continuous  failure,  trans- 
ferred her  affections  to  another  lover,  who  did  not 
believe  in  spiritism,  and  discarded  her  world  of  fan- 
tasy for  a  pleasanter  world  of  reality. 

Closely  related  to  the  hysterical  tempera- 
ment is  the  mental  diathesis  which  makes  for 
dissociated    personality.      Here,    again,    the 


154  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

correlation  between  the  inception  of  this  strange 
psychic  phenomenon  and  the  onset  of  puberty 
is  an  exceedingly  high  one.  The  famous  Felida 
X  of  Azam's  studies  was  normal  till  thirteen, 
after  which  she  showed  hysterical  symptoms, 
and  periodically  fell  into  a  trance,  emerging 
with  a  new  personality,  as  vivacious  as  her 
primary  state  was  gloomy.  The  alteration 
between  the  two  states  continued  for  some  time, 
after  which  the  secondary  and  more  pleasant 
personality  became  paramount.  (2.)  Janet's 
Marcelline,  the  classic  patient  whom  he  kept 
alive  by  inducing  her  second  personality 
through  hypnosis,  was  thirteen  when  brought 
to  him  for  treatment.  (18.)  Miss  Beauchamp, 
whose  renown  has  spread  far  and  wide,  first 
came  to  Dr.  Prince  at  the  age  of  twenty -three, 
but  her  pathological  manifestations  began  sev- 
eral years  earlier,  (25.) 

These  examples  might  be  indefinitely  multi- 
plied, but  since  the  problem  of  dual  or  multiple 
personality  has  received  more  popular  attention 
than  many  other  phenomena  of  abnormal  psy- 
chology, it  is  unnecessary  to  go  into  details  of 
these  cases,  although  a  general  summarization 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  155 

of  the  characteristics  which  they  possess  in 
connnon  may  be  of  some  interest.  In  the  first 
place,  as  Sidis  and  Goodhart  remark,  the  multi- 
ple personality  is  essentially  an  extrema-iorm 
of  the  dissociation  process  which  plays  so  im- 
portant a  role  in  the  Freudian  conception  of 
the  neuroses,  only  in  this  case  it  is  an  entire 
phase  of  the  personality  which  becomes  un- 
conscious. There'can  be  two  such  separations," 
or  an  indefinite  number;  the  essential  point  is 
that  they  oscillate  between  the  realms  of 
consciouness  and  unconsciousness,  and  take 
turns  in  becoming  the  conscious  and  dominant 
personality. ,  (27.)  Usually,  one  of  these  per- 
sonalities is  more  vital  than  the  others,  and  can 
remember  all  that  is  said  and  done  in  the  other 
states,  while  the  less  energetic  individualities 
are  cognizant  only  of  their  i)wn_existence. 

Dr.  Prince's  case  is  typical  of  the  tempera- 
mental diathesis  which  is  favorable  for  the  de- 
velopment of  the  multiple  personality;  he 
pictures  Miss  Beauchamp  as  exceedingly  sensi- 
tive and  suggestible  in  her  nervous  constitution, 
and  emphasizes  the  habit  of  day-dreaming  and 
flight  from  the  unpleasant  which  she  had  es- 


156  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

tablished  as  a  refuge  from  the  disagreeable 
surroundings  of  her  childhood.  (25.)  Thus  it 
becomes  evident  that  the  dissociation  of  per- 
sonality is  only  the  exaggeration  of  the 
normal  tendencies  of  adolescence,  with  its  ever- 
changing  moods,  and  its  active  imagination. 
The  crux  of  the  matter  is  the  pathological  in- 
stability of  the  nervous  system  which  allows 
these  moods  to  become  completely  separated 
from  one  another,  and  the  over-development  of 
the  day-dreaming  tendency  as  a  means  of  es- 
cape from  the  realities  of  a  painful  environ- 
ment, so  that  dream  and  actual  event  become 
indistinguishable. 

Even  more  entirely  the  result  of  day- 
dreaming than  the  development  of  a  multiple 
personality  is  the  pathological  lying  of  hys- 
terical girls  which  has  been  studied  by  Richard 
(26),  Delbruck  (7),  Pick  (23),  Healy  (17)  and 
others.  Richards  says  the  lies  are  a  mixture  of 
delusions  and  deliberate  falsehood;  Pick  tells 
of  an  eighteen-year-old  girl  whose  lies  were 
wholly  descriptive  of  illusory  experiences,  and 
of  a  second  case  where  the  falsehoods  were 
obviously  insincere,  although  the  result  of  am- 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  157 

bivalent  desire  for  and  fear  of  the  erotic  life; 
Delbriick  gives  a  wide  collection  of  cases  in 
which  delusion  and  deliberate  falsehood  are  not 
to  be  distinguished  one  from  the  other,  finding 
his  material,  as  Healey  does,  largely  among  the 
delinquent  classes. 

Pres.  Hall  comments  upon  the  psychopathic 
tendency  to  lie  in  the  following  words,  which 
may  well  serve  as  a  summarization  of  the  whole 
problem : 

''These  often  thwarted  and  abortive  lives  show,  I 
think,  a  propensity  to  attract  attention  and  be  of 
importance,  which  is  abnormal  only  in  its  degree  and 
is  morbidly  and  precociously  developed.  Some  of 
these  cases  represent  the  revolt  of  natures  handicapped 
by  heredity  and  cramped  in  a  narrow  sphere.  .  .  . 
Some  of  the  cases  are  intoxicated  with  the  lust  to 
broaden  their  experience,  be  and  do  things  that  they 
have  heard  others  were  and  did,  or  to  make  possi- 
bilities actual.  Moreover  there  is  a  strange  tingling 
inebriation  with  the  sense  of  being  alive,  that  fla- 
grant falsehood  better  than  anything  else  excites  in 
some  natures.  Precisely  what  they  are  not,  they  as- 
sume ;  what  they  cannot  achieve,  they  do ;  wishes  real 
and  riot  toward  realization.  They  become  drunk  and 
debauched  with  lies  as  many  have  recourse  to  strong 
drink  to  escape  the  stress  and  strain  of  real  life  when 


158  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

it  is  hard,  poor,  and  mean,  for  this  is  the  chief  motive 
that  drives  many  to  drink.  .  .  . 

"It  is  this  point  of  view  which  reveals  best  of 
all  cures  and  preventives  of  lying,  viz.,  to  enrich  and 
enlarge  actual  life,  to  fill  out  experiences,  so  as  to 
narrow  the  chasm  between  fact  and  fiction.  The  more 
physical  development  which  tends  to  establish  a  close 
bond  between  knowing  and  doing,  the  more  varied  and 
interesting  and  absorbing  the  daily  life,  the  more  the 
best  and  strongest  feelings  are  stirred  and  given  vent ; 
the  more  the  youthful  soul  palpitates  with  the  joy 
of  existence  and  accomplishment,  the  more  zestful  is 
the  knowledge  acquired  and  the  less  the  temptation 
to  every  form  of  lying.  Conversely,  where  life  is 
made  dull  and  strained  by  the  environment  or  tense 
by  disease  or  defect,  so  that  the  soul  is  habitually 
hungry,  there  we  have  temptation  to  many  ways  of 
escape,  from  runaways  to  falsehood.  .  .  .  Without 
knowing  it,  these  hysterical  girls  feel  disinherited 
and  robbed  of  their  birthright.  Their  bourgeoning 
woman's  instinct  to  be  the  center  of  interest  and 
admiration  bursts  all  bonds,  and  they  speak  and  even 
act  out  what  with  others  would  be  only  secret  reverie. 
Thus  they  can  not  only  be  appreciated  but  marveled 
at,  can  almost  become  priestesses,  pythonesses, 
m£Bnads,  and  set  their  mates,  neighbors,  or  even  great 
savants  agog  and  agape  while  they  have  their  fling 
at  life,  reckless  of  the  consequences.  Thus  they  can 
be  of  consequence,  respected,  observed,  envied,  perhaps 
even  studied.  So  they  defy  their  fate  and  wreak 
their  little  souls  upon  expression  with  abandon  and 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  159 

have  their  supreme  satisfaction  for  a  day,  impelled 
to  do  so  by  blind  instinct  which  their  intellect  is  too 
undeveloped  to  restrain.  And  all  this  because  their 
actual  life  is  so  dull  and  empty."     {14:  pp.  362-363.) 

One  other  form  of  the  hysterical  trait  is  the 
abnormal  degree  which  is  sometimes  attained 
by  the  adolescent  tendency  to  conversion  of  the 
libido  into  religious  worship. ,  Psychoanalytic 
studies  have  shown  the  strange  mixture  of  holi> 
ness  and  eroticism  ^'hich  the  image  of  Jesus  or 
even  of  God  himself,  inspires  in  patients  suffer- 
ing from  religious  mania;  while  Pfister,  in  his 
analysis  of  the  nun,  Margareta  Ebner,  has 
shown  the  mingling  of  the  ecstasies  of  sexuality 
and  mysticism,  as  appearing  in  a  highly  sym- 
bolic form.     {22.) 

In  literature,  Gerhart  Hauptmann  's  Hannele 
furnishes  an  exquisite  illustration  of  the  ten- 
dency of  the  overwrought  girl  to  convert  her 
awakening  love  life  into  the  channels  of  re- 
ligious worship.     {12.) 

The  daughter  of  a  village  drunkard,  who  beats  and 
starves  her  mercilessly,  Hannele 's  mind  and  body 
break  down  together.  She  calls  indiscriminately  upon 
Christ  and  her  beloved  teacher,  Jesus-Gottwald,  whom 


160  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

she  identifies  with  the  Saviour;  and  dying,  is  dressed 
in  bridal  robes,  happy  in  the  faith  that  she  is  taking 
her  marriage  vows  instead  of  her  death-bed  consecra- 
tion. Whether  she  dies  from  her  father's  blows, 
or  from  her  plunge  into  the  icy  lake,  whence  she  heard 
Jesus-Gottwald 's  holy  voice  calling  to  her,  does  not 
matter;  the  essential  point  is  the  unification  of  her 
earthly  and  spiritual  love.  The  Freudian  formulas 
may  well  be  utilized  to  explain  Hannele's  fantasies. 
The  repressed  love  for  her  schoolmaster  reinforces  her 
heavenly  adoration;  the  sense  of  sin  connected  with 
her  sternly  checked  love  for  Gottwald,  who  is  mar- 
ried, comes  out  in  her  delirium  in  the  conviction  that 
she  has  committed  the  unforgivable  sin.  Yet  in  the 
end  she  is  at  peace  in  the  grasp  of  death,  for  has 
she  not  the  magic  cowslip  flower  which  is  the  key 
to  Heaven,  and  is  she  not  at  last  the  bride  of  her  be- 
loved Jesus-Gottwald? 

Baring-Gould,  in  his  Lives  of  the  Saints, 
gives  nearly  two  hundred  and  fifty  cases  in 
which  adolescent  girls  are  carried  away  by 
religious  fervor,  and  although  some  of  his  sto- 
ries are  purely  legendary,  many  authentic  biog- 
raphies are  included.  Perhaps  one  of  the  most 
interesting  of  these  mediaeval  saints  was  Saint 
Theresa,  whose  life  is  typical  of  the  whole  class 
of  religious  fanatics  described  by  Baring-Gould. 
(4:  F.  10.) 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  161 

Saint  Theresa  lived  in  the  early  part  of  the  six- 
teenth century,  and  was  the  child  of  noble  and  very 
virtuous  parents,  who  brought  their  children  up  in 
accordance  with  the  strictest  teachings  of  the  church. 
Her  mother  is  described  as  being  very  delicate,  and 
afflicted  with  numerous  infirmities,  and  it  would  ap- 
pear that  Theresa  inherited  from  her  a  distinctly 
neuropathic  temperament.  With  one  of  her  brothers, 
who  was  most  dearly  loved  by  her,  Theresa  read  the 
lives  of  the  saints,  and  the  two  children  planned  to 
live  together,  hermit  fashion,  in  emulation  of  these 
tales,  or  even  to  die  the  glorious  death  of  martyrs.  To 
the  psychoanalyst,  this  suggests  a  precocious  linking 
together  of  the  erotic  and  religious  elements  of  Saint 
Theresa's  nature,  in  those  tender  years  before  the 
libido  had  begun  to  seek  an  adult  goal,  outside  the 
family  circle. 

At  twelve,  Theresa  lost  her  mother,  and  lacking  her 
careful  guidance,  began  reading  a  series  of  books 
which  were  well  calculated  to  awaken  her  innocent 
mind  to  very  definite  and  none  too  subtly  expressed 
details  of  the  sexual  life,  a  knowledge  which  was  con- 
firmed by  her  own  experiences,  when,  at  the  age  of 
fourteen,  she  and  a  girl  friend  entered  into  all  sorts 
of  questionable  intrigues  with  their  male  friends. 
As  a  result  of  her  flirtations,  her  father  placed  her  in 
a  convent,  where  the  training  of  her  early  youth  waa 
vividly  recalled  to  her  mind,  so  that  she  began  to  re- 
pent of  her  worldly  ways,  and  to  fear  that  she  had 
offended  God  beyond  all  redemption.  For  a  year  and 
a  half  the  struggle  with  her  naturally  strong  erotic 


162  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

nature,  which  had  been  exaggerated  by  her  experience, 
continued ;  then  she  became  ill,  and  was  removed  from 
the  convent  to  her  own  home.  During  her  illness,  she 
suffered  from  the  typical  hysterical  symptoms, — im- 
aginary pains,  fainting  fits,  attacks  of  fever,  etc.,  etc., 
— ^but  by  the  time  she  was  eighteen,  she  had  deter- 
mined, in  spite  of  her  ill  health,  to  become  a  nun,  and 
devote  her  life  to  God 's  service. 

From  her  entrance  into  the  convent,  her  life  became 
a  constant  effort  to  satisfy  her  erotic  cravings  through 
means  which  were  permissible  under  the  guise  of  re- 
ligious fervor.  She  tells  of  one  confessor  after  an- 
other who  became  the  recipients  of  her  lavish  affec- 
tion, and  whom  she  always  desired  to  incite  to  greater 
service  of  God,  since  only  in  God  could  she  hope  to 
possess  the  affections  which  her  vows  forbade  her  to 
receive  openly.  "Though  I  have  him  already  in 
reality,  yet  that  will  not  content  me  unless  I  possess 
him  altogether,"  she  reports  herself  as  saying  about 
one  of  these  confessors,  in  the  course  of  her  prayers, 
and  to  the  analyst,  there  could  be  no  clearer  avowal 
of  the  erotic  motif  underlying  her  zeal  for  the  souls 
of  these  men  who  roused  in  her  a  fanatic  love. 

The  final  stage  in  the  conversion  of  her  libido  was 
that  in  which  she  began  to  have  the  typical  visions 
and  ecstasies  of  the  religious  mystic.  In  the  midst 
of  her  temptations,  the  devil  appeared  to  her  in  many 
guises,  and  she,  all  unwitting  that  this  was  but  a 
projection  of  the  sexual  emotions  which  she  would  no 
longer  admit  formed  a  part  of  her  makeup,  was  wont 
to  call  for  holy  water  to  exorcise  the  evil  spirit. 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  163 

Conforming  beautifully  to  the  Freudian  rubrics, 
was  one  vision  in  which  she  says  that  *'a  seraph 
stabbed  at  her  with  a  dart  whose  point  burned  with 
fire,  and  the  barbed  end  entered  her  breast,  caught  her 
bowels  and  pulled  them  out  as  the  seraph  drew  away. ' ' 

The  erotic  symbolism  of  such  hallucinations  is  un- 
mistakable, particularly  when  she  continues  her  ac- 
count of  the  experience  thus:  "The  pain  was  so  in- 
tense that  it  forced  deep  groans  from  me ;  but  the 
sweetness  which  this  extreme  pain  caused  in  me  was 
so  excessive  that  there  was  no  desiring  to  be  free 
from  it, ' ' 

Little  by  little  the  visions  grew  to  be  more  and  more 
spiritual,  and  the  religious  replaced  the  erotic  element 
more  and  more  completely,  or  rather  the  disguises 
which  her  impulses  assujned  became  better  perfected, 
so  that  she  grew  to  be  revered  as  an  excessively  holy 
woman.  Yet  the  sense  of  sin  which  had  always  op- 
pressed her  in  her  first  passions  for  her  confessors 
never  wholly  left  her,  even  in  the  most  ecstatic  of  her 
experiences.  Thus  she  spent  her  life  seeking  to  atone 
for  her  lustful  impulses  by  mortifying  the  sinful  flesh 
by  all  the  penances  known  to  the  strictest  ascetics  of 
the  past,  at  the.  same  time  revelling  in  ecstatic  com- 
munications with  her  * '  heavenly  bridegroom, ' '  and 
dying  firm  in  the  belief  that  she  was  confirming  her 
marriage  to  her  God. 

The  anxiety  neurosis,  which  is  le'-s  character-^ 
istic  of  the  adolescent  period,^  is  closely  allied 
to  hysteria  in  its  etiology,  but  the  sexual  emo- 


164  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

tion  is  converted  to  fear  and  anxiety,  the 
general  state  of  Angst  into  which  the  eroticism 
passes  over,  in  accordance  with  the  principles 
laid  down  by  Cannon  (as  quoted  in  Chapter 
II),  seizing  upon  almost  any  specific  object  on 
which  to  focus  its  energy.  Dementia  praecox, 
on  the  other  hand,  is  characterized  by  an  intro- 
version of  the  libido,  which,  meeting  with 
resistances  which  prevent  its  finding. an  objec- 
tive fixation,  is  turned  inward,  and  becomes 
transformed  into  fear,  or,  in  its  later  stages, 
into  auto-eroticism.     (20.) 

Thus,  the  clinical  symptoms  of  D.  P.,  the 
sinking  into  a  state  of  lethargy  and  stupidity, 
are  due  to  regeneration  of  function,  rather  than 
of  structure,  the  vital  energy  becoming  so 
wholly  introverted  that  there  remains  no 
ability  to  focus  the  interest  and  attention  on 
any  object  of  the  external  work.  This  view  is 
well  brought  out  in  the  following  analysis,  in 
which  Lucile  Dooley  shows  the  successive  stages 
of  libido  regression^  which  finally  culminate  in 
this  form  of  insanity.     (8.) 

In  October,  1916,  there  was  brought  to  the  hospital  a 
young  girl  of  eighteen,  who  exhibited  all  the  symp- 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  165 

toms  of  manic-depressive  insanity,  with  its  alterna- 
tions of  stages  of  excitement  and  melancholy.  Later, 
she  showed  all  the  symptoms  of  hysteria,  and  finally 
sank  into  an  infantile  and  passive  state  which  could 
only  be  classified  as  dementia  prascox.  The  past  his- 
tory of  this  girl  had  been  one  of  disappointments,  both 
personally  and  socially.  A  father  complex  impelled 
her  to  try  to  identify  herself  with  her  mother,  so  that 
at  twelve  she  had  been  possessed  with  an  abnormal 
passion  for  her  doll,  and  vnth.  an  intense  affection  for 
the  children  of  her  neighborhood. 

This  CEdipus  complex  was  complicated  by  a  patho- 
logical tendency  to  cling  to  the  shelter  of  her  mother's 
care,  to  remain  her  baby,  a  tendency  which  was  a 
direct  result  of  a  feeling  of  inferiority  which  made 
her  feel  unable  to  face  the  social  situation  unaided. 
The  feeling  of  inferiority,  which  was  biological  in 
origin,  as  always,  was  intensified  at  the  age  of  thir- 
teen, when  for  the  first  time  she  learned  a  little  of  what 
it  meant  to  be  a  woman.  To  the  feeling  of  rebellion 
at  her  lot  was  added  the  feeling  that  she  was  abnormal, 
since  the  expected  menstruation  did  not  occur  until 
three  years  later  when  she  was  sixteen.  The  popu- 
larity of  her  younger  sister  increased  her  feeling  of 
inferiority,  but  she  compensated  for  her  sexual  fail- 
ings b}^  leading  her  class  in  all  her  studies,  although 
secretly  resolved  to  be  a  woman  fully  and  completely, 
if  ever  maturity  should  be  vouchsafed  to  her.  The 
feeling  that  she  was  a  helpless  victim  of  fate  was  now 
increased  by  the  innocent  contraction  of  a  venereal 
disease,  and  at  last  she  broke  down,  and  was  taken 


166  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

to  the  hospital  in  a  state  of  mania  the  very  fall  she 
had  expected  to  enter  college. 

The  first  regression  of  the  libido  was  to  a  stage 
in  which  she  evinced  the  hysterical  desire  of  atten- 
tion, and  was  expressed  in  tearing  up  the  blankets 
on  her  bed  to  obtain  the  bright  colored  strips  for  rib- 
bons ;  by  the  invention  of  all  sorts  of  symbolic  games 
which  expressed  the  repressed  fixation  on  the  father; 
in  dramatic  representations  and  the  creation  of  poems 
which  embodied  her  erotic  fantasies.  Then  she  sank 
to  an  infantile  level,  where  she  loved  to  be  commanded, 
dramatized  Hugo's  The  Orders  of  the  King,  and  fan- 
cied herself  a  prisoner  in  the  Kaiser's  palace.  In  this 
stage  her  father  was  no  longer  the  ideal  of  her  girlish 
heart,  but  the  one  who  must  be  obeyed,  and  as  such 
was  variously  pictured  as  the  Kaiser,  king,  Harry 
Thaw,  villain  in  the  play,  etc.  Narcissitic  impulses 
also  developed,  and  finally,  sinking  below  the  infan- 
tile to  the  pre-natal  level  of  dementia  prfpcox  in 
its  lowest  stages,  she  became  not  only  auto-erotic, 
but  a  '  *  smearer. ' ' 

The  interesting  part  of  this  ease,  however,  is  the 
complete  cure  which  the  analysis  effected.  As  the  girl 
began  to  recover,  she  retraced  all  the  steps  by  which 
she  had  sunken  to  this  lowest  level.  The  first  indi- 
cation that  she  was  coming  up  from  the  pre-natal 
plane  was  a  desire  to  scrub  the  floor  and  walls  of 
her  room,  which  she  had  made  utterly  filthy  in  her 
archaic  state.  Then  came  a  strange  case  of  infantile 
foot-fetishism,  and  finally  the  adolescent  level  of  the 
hysteria  was  reached,  which  clung  a  long  time  with 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  167 

its  color  sjnmbols  and  other  delusions.  Finally,  she 
had  retained  of  her  insanity  only  one  symptom, — a 
recurrent  dream,  in  which  slie  was  combing  the  snarls 
out  of  her  hair.  Whenever  a  lock  was  pulled  out,  it 
turned  into  a  snake,  which  she  burned.  When  the 
last  lock  was  pulled  out  and  burned,  the  dream  did 
not  return  again,  and  as  her  complexes, — the  abnormal 
love  of  her  father  and  hatred  of  her  sister, — had  been 
smoothed  out  earlier  in  the  treatment,  she  became  a 
normal  adolescent,  with  no  tendency  to  lapse  into  the 
old  neuroticism. 

In  addition  to  these  distinctly  psychopathic 
traits  of  adolescence,  there  are  all  sorts  of 
phenomena  which  border  on  the  abnormal,  al- 
though they  are  not  so  marked  as  to  interfere 
with  the  intellectual  and  social  activities  of  the 
individual.  Very  often  the  adolescent  girl  is 
obsessed  by  some  bizarre  fancy,  which  might 
well  slip  over  into  the  category  of  the  neurotic 
conflict,  but  for  sheer  good  fortune,  and  the 
native  tendency  of  the  mind  to  strive  for 
healthy  functioning.  ,  The  naturally  .secretive 
nature  of  the  adolescent  girl  prevents  her  re- 
vealing these  strange  fantasies,  except  to  a  few 
sworn  comrades,  no  wiser  than  herself,  for  she 


168  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

fears  incurring  ridicule  from  her  adult  friends 
and  relatives. 

Two  cases  typical  of  these  borderline  phe- 
nomena recur  to  my  memory  from  the  expe- 
rience of  college  days. 

I.  Miss  Black  was  a  delicate,  rather  nervous  girl, 
with  the  marked  literary  talent  which  is  often  char- 
acteristic of  sensitive,  dreamy  natures.  She  had  just 
become  engaged  to  a  young  man  very  much  her  in- 
ferior mentally,  but  whom  she  professed  to  love  whole- 
heartedly. Very  soon,  however,  she  began  to  develop 
a  strange  hallucination,  in  which  a  skull  displaced  the 
features  of  her  lover  whenever  she  tried  to  image  his 
face,  or  gazed  at  his  picture.  To  the  psychoanalyst, 
this  fact,  in  conjunction  with  certain  details  of  her  his- 
tory which  I  will  not  take  time  to  relate  here,  would 
indicate  an  erotic  conflict,  which  might  well  lead  to 
a  neurosis  if  long  continued. 

II.  Miss  White  was  a  rather  moody  personality, 
at  some  times  rather  gay  and  fond  of  masculine  at- 
tention, but  at  others  very  reserved  and  quiet  and 
absorbed  in  her  studies.  The  striking  thing  about  her 
case  was  the  variation  in  handwriting  which  she  dis- 
played during  these  periods,  a  difference  so  marked 
that  it  attracted  the  attention  of  her  psychology 
teacher. 

If,  as  Victor  Mercante  asserts  in  his  recent  book, 
"La  crisis  de  la  pubertad"  {21),  the  handwriting  is 
simply  a  motor  indication  of  the  adolescent  frame  of 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  169 

mind,  it  would  seem  that  two  separate  personalities 
were  struggling  for  survival  within  the  girl's  soul. 
This  view  was  confirmed  by  Dr.  Prince,  who  declared 
the  specimens  of  writing  submitted  to  him  could  only 
indicate  the  incipient  stages  of  a  dissociated  per- 
sonality. 

If  his  diagnosis  was  correct,  the  dragging  of  the. 
matter  thus  to  consciousness  must  have  been  an  ex- 
cellent therapeutic  measure,  for  the  quieter  hand- 
writing gradually  came  to  replace  the  bolder  script 
entirely. 

One  of  the  commonest  perversions  of  the 
libido  among  adolescent  girls  is  the  fixation  of 
the  affections  on  members  of  the  same  sex, 
and  absolute  indifference  or  even  aversion  to 
male  companionship.*  In  extremely  pathologi- 
cal cases,  this  tendency  may  involve  gross 
physical  manifestations,  and  be  distinctly 
homosexual  in  nature;  but  generally  it  is  a 
very  high  and  noble  sentiment,  and  is  to  be 
censored  only  as  it  prevents  an  ultimate  trans- 

*  At  the  International  Conference  of  Medical  Women  in 
New  York,  Sept.  15-Oct.  25,  1919,  Dr.  Constance  Long  (of 
England),  Dr.  Eleanor  Bertine  (of  New  York),  and  other 
leading  medical  women,  emphasized  the  increasing  role  which 
homosexuality  is  coming  to  play  in  the  life  of  the  modern 
girl.  According  to  their  view,  it  is  the  failure  to  transfer  the 
libido  from  a  love  object  of  the  same  sex  to  one  of  the  oppo- 
site sex,  which  is  responsible  in  part  for  the  increasing  num- 
ber of  women  celibates  and  divorcees. 


M 


170  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

ference  of  the  love-life  to  its  more  natural 
object. 

Ambivalent  forms  of  the  (Edipus  complex, 
in  which  the  mother  has  been  idealized  and 
the  father  disliked  or  feared,  is  dn^f  actor  which 
helps  in  this'fixation  of lhe~ libido' on  other  girls 
or  older  women;  a  distaste  for  the  sexual 
relationship  caused  by  the  teaching  that  it  is 
degrading  or  the  impression  that  it  involves 
suffering  and  pain  is  a  second  motive,  while 
finally,  the  domination  by  a  power  complex  may 
incite  a  dislike  of  yielding  to  the  domineering 
influence  of  the  passion  of  the  male,  when  a  like 
degree  of  affection  can  be  obtained  through  the 
worship  of  other  girls,  whose  attitude  at  the 
same  time  gratifies  the  longing  for  power. 

Moreover,  there  are  certain  conditions  in  the 
social  life  of  our  times  which  tend  to  favor  the 
development  of  any  homosexual  trend  in  the 
adolescent  girl.  There  is  a  growing  antagon- 
ism to  the  masculine  double  moral  standard 
and  general  attitude  toward  women  on  the  part 
of  girls  who  have  accepted  the  feminist  philoso- 
phy which  makes  them  unwilling  to  venture  into 
matrimony  with  the  average  man  whom  they 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  171 

meet.  The  newly  aroused  ambition  of  woman 
for  a  life  work  of  her  own  other  than  wifehood 
and  motherhood  is  another  powerful  force  im- 
pelling her  to  hesitate  before  entering  upon  a 
relationship  which  will  in  all  probability  thwart 
such  desires.*  With  the  denial  of  an  outlet  for 
her  sexual  impulses  in  marriage,  however, 
comes  the  tendency  to  substitute  unconventional 
heterosexual  relationships  or  to  find  a  love  ob- 
ject in  members  of  the  same  sex.  The  latter 
proceeding  becomes  all  the  easier  with  the  ex- 
istence of  a  comparatively  large  number  of 
professional  women,  who  approximate  to  some 
extent  the  traditional  male  characteristics  of 
aggression  and  enterprise, 

Clemence  Dane's  Begiment  of  Women  (6)  is  an 
absorbing  study  of  the  development  of  this  charac- 
teristic in  the  three  principal  characters  of  the  book, — 
Clare  Hartley,  Louise  Denny,  and  Alwynne  Durand. 
The  scene  is  an  English  school  for  girls,  where  the 
"crush"  is  the  accepted  order  of  things,  and  is  al- 
lowed to  reach  its  climax  in  poor  little  Louise  Denny, 
the  motherless  child  who  fixes  her  affections  on  her 
beloved  teacher,  Miss  Hartley,  and  whose  heart  is 
broken  when  she  fancies  she  has  fallen  out  of  the 

*  See  case  of  Miss  Y,  Chapter  III. 


172  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

good  graces  of  her  adored  one.  Louise  is  a  precocious 
child,  just  entering  the  adolescent  period ;  a  dreamy, 
sensitive  nature,  misunderstood  by  her  father  and 
stepmother,  so  that  she  has  sought  refuge  in  a  worl ' 
of  fancy  in  which  she  is  visited  by  the  dead  mothp 
whom  she  believes  is  reincarnated  in  Clare  Hartley. 

Clare,  the  perfect  Adlerian  type,  is  amused  by  her 
power  over  Louise,  and  pets  her  uutil  she  has  made 
the  lonely  child  her  slave.  Being  utterly  selfish,  how- 
ever, she  soon  tires  of  her  plaything,  and  when  Louise 
irritates  her,  does  not  hesitate  to  make  her  displeasure 
felt.  Perhaps  she  is  all  the  more  tempted  to  show 
her  moods  because  she  loves  to  see  others  writhe  un- 
der her  scorn,  and  to  feel  the  intoxicating  sense  of 
power  that  accrues  from  the  knowledge  that  a  single 
word  can  make  or  mar  the  happiness  of  her  followers. 

Miss  Durand,  the  younger  teacher,  is  also  a  satel- 
lite of  Clare's,  and  as  worshipful  of  her  heroine  as  is 
little  Louise;  but  hers  is  a  less  abnormal  affection, 
and  when  the  conflict  comes,  she  sees  the  unworthiness 
of  her  idol,  and  is  able  to  make  the  normal  trans- 
ference of  her  love-life  to  Roger  Lumsden.  The 
climax  of  the  book  centers  around  the  tragic  death 
of  Louise,  who  under  the  torture  of  being  made  to 
feel  that  she  has  wholly  forfeited  Clare's  affection, 
finds  life  too  hard  to  face,  and  seeks  the  mother  of  her 
visions  by  the  path  of  suicide. 

It  is  hard  to  say  which  is  the  more  instructive 
study,  from  the  psychological  point  of  view,  Clare, 
with  her  insatiable  thirst  for  the  worship  of  othei-s, 
which  she  repays  with  a  strange  affection  wholly  pe- 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  173 

culiar  to  her  own  nature,  or  Louise  with  her  dreams 
that  border  on  delusions,  her  oversensitive  reactions, 
and  her  overstrained  nervous  sy^stem,  which  she  has 
e:J^austed  in  the  effort  to  attain  to  all  that  her  god- 
de^  expects  of  her,  and  in  vain  emotional  outbursts 
as  one  thing  after  another  accumulates  to  add  to  her 
childish  sorrows. 

A  more  usual  case  of  this  spiritualized  homo- 
sexuality came  under  my  observation  in  a  col- 
lege friend,  who  had  a  positive  aversion  to  men, 
so  that  she  would  not  even  accept  invitations 
to  dances  or  other  social  functions,  preferring 
to  remain  at  home  when  a  male  escort  was  the 
only  alternative.  She  was  in  the  habit  of  de- 
veloping violent  crushes  on  other  girls,  and 
during  the  most  ardent  part  of  the  friendships 
would  be  consumed  with  jealousy  of  their  girl 
friends,  although  she  never  objected  to  their 
receiving  attention  from  men.  Doubtless  the 
basis  of  her  aversion  to  men  was  the  utter  ig- 
norance she  had  of  all  sexual  matters,  the 
repression  of  her  erotic  nature  being  the  most 
complete  I  have  ever  seen  in  a  girl  who  shows 
every  evidence  of  possessing  a  potential  ca- 
pacity for  passion.  She  is  now  twenty-two 
years  old,  however,  and  this  passion  is  still 


174  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

latent,  while  she  shows  no  curiosity  in  regard 
to  the  sexual  life.  She  admits  that  at  this  one 
point  her  mother  has  failed  her,  and  says  that 
as  a  result  of  the  vagueness  of  her  knowledge, 
she  is  very  nervous  when  with  men,  and  fears 
to  have  anything  to  do  with  them. 

Although  the  formal  inception  of  these  and 
similar  neurotic  afflictions  takes  place  at 
pubescence,  their  roots  extend  far  back  into  the 
childhood  of  the  girl,  and  in  many  instances  the 
knowledge  of  a  few  psychological  principles, 
and  the  exercise  of  a  small  degree  of  foresight 
on  the  part  of  parents  and  teachers,  would  serve 
to  prevent  them  entirely.  The  tendencies  at  the 
bottom  of  the  neuroses  are  in  themselves  nor- 
mal and  wholesome,  it  is  only  the  exaggerated 
degree  which  they  assume  that  makes  them 
pathological  in  nature.  Every  adolescent  girl 
possesses  the  same  capacities  for  transforma- 
tion of  the  sexual  instinct  into  substantive 
channels,  a  power  limited  only  by  the  degree  of 
eroticism  which  is  inherent  in  her  organic 
structure  and  function.  It  depends  only  upon 
her  nervous  equipment,  and  most  of  all  upon 
the  long  series  of  external  stimuli  to  which  she 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  175 

has  been  subjected  as  to  what  form  these  vicaria 
shall  take,  and  whether  the  conversion  shall  be 
to  a  higher  or  lower  level.  The  environmental 
factors  which  shape  her  reaction  have  been 
more  or  less  clearly  hinted  at — the  influence  of 
the  family  situation  and  the  method  of  acquir- 
ing sexual  knowledge  being  most  important. 

The  Freudian  analyses  have  shown  the  im- 
mense significance  attached  to  the  father  in 
shaping  the  girl's  life;  it  is  equally  injurious 
for  her  to4ove  him  too  well,  or  to  look  upon  him 
with  distrust  and  hatred,  because  either  attitude 
prevents  a  happy  transference  of  her  love-life 
to  eligible  persons  of  the  opposite  sex.  Again, 
the  impulse  to  return  to  the  protected  state  of 
infancy,  when  there  was  utter  rest  in  the  ma- 
ternal womb,  which  Ferenczi  has  emphasized, 
(10),  reinforces  the  famous  Freudian  flight 
from  reality,  and  encourages  introversion  of  the 
libido,  with  its  subjective  element,  and  its 
creation  of  a  dream-world  which  may  come  to 
replace  the  outer  world  of  actual  events.  Hence 
Jung's  ambivalent  conception,  which  notes  also 
the  rebellion  of  the  girl  against  restraint  as  she 
strives  to  free  herself  from  this  childish  cling- 


176  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

ing  to  the  maternal  protection,  in  order  to  meet 
the  new  world  which  attracts,  even  while  it 
terrifies.     {30.) 

In  so  far  as  reality  proves  pleasurable,  there 
will,  of  course  be  no  mental  conflict,  or  attempt 
to  take  refuge  in  day-dreams.  Normally,  reality 
should  give  access  to  a  fuller,  richer  life,  in 
which  the  imagination  is  utilized  constructively 
in  the  higher  synthesis  of  Baldwin's  conception 
(5),  to  formulate  ideals  for  the  future,  and  in 
work  and  creative  endeavor,  not  in  the  weaving 
of  fantasies  which  are  a  satisfaction  per  se, 
and  paralyze  the  active  nature  of  the  organism. 
The  childhood  which  creates  in  the  girl  a  mental 
state  which  is  so  incompatible  with  the  facts  of 
everyday  life  that  her  tortured  mind  refuses  to 
make  the  broader  social  adjustment  from  the 
home  circle  which  becomes  necessary  at  ado- 
lescence, or  which  has  so  over-sheltered  her 
from  natural  results  of  her  reactions  that  she 
has  never  been  prepared  to  undergo  the  pain 
which  is  followed  by  a  more  lasting  happiness, 
is  the  ultimate  cause  of  the  adolescent  neurosis, 
and  the  source  of  the  psychic  resistance  which 
makes  the  higher  sublimation  next  to  impossible. 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  177 

From  this  point  of  view,  the  duty  of  parent 
and  teacher  alike  becomes  clear.  To  the  former 
is  given  the  task  of  providing  for  the  child  and 
young  girl  a  normal  home  life,  in  which  there 
is  neither  too  much  nor  too  little  affection,  and 
in  which  the  child  is  guarded  from  pathological 
situations,  but  not  overprotected  from  the  auto- 
matic results  of  breaking  natural  and  social 
laws.  To  the  teacher  falls  the  more  difficult 
work  of  inspiring  that  correct  use  of  the  ability 
to  dream  which  forms  the  basis  of  the  interests, 
the  idealizations,  and  the  sublimations  which 
prove  invaluable  as  the  means  of  transmuting 
the  great  fund  of  organic  energy  into  those 
higher  erethic  calentures  which  make  for  the 
happiness  of  the  individual  and  the  welfare  of 
the  race. 

A  quite  different  solution  of  the  difficulties 
of  the  adolescent  girl  is  that  proposed  by  cer- 
tain extremists  among  the  psychoanalysts. 
Ignoring  the  fact  that  the  sexual  energy  of 
humanity  is  anything  more  than  a  simple  physi- 
cal reaction,  these  men  gravely  urge  that  the 
adolescent  girl  who  finds  the  problem  of  con- 
trolling   and    sublimating    her    impulses    too 


178  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

arduous,  be  allowed  full  satisfaction  of  the  sex- 
ual instinct  on  the  biological  level.  The  disas- 
trous results  of  a  general  acceptance  of  this 
advice  are  only  too  plain.  Aside  from  the  men- 
tal conflict  induced  by  a  throwing  aside  of  social 
conventions,  which  involves  a  repression  of  the 
gregarious  instinct  and  a  violation  of  ingrained 
ideals  of  conduct,  the  very  nature  of  the  female 
organism,  in  its  biological  and  psychological 
structure,  prohibits  the  success  of  this  solution. 
The  sexual  impulse  of  woman  is  not  the  sim- 
ple momentary  desire  of  the  male,  but  a  highly 
ambivalent  emotion,  in  which  fear  is  intimately 
mingled  with  desire,  because  a  long  evolution- 
ary history  has  made  the  sexual  act  fraught 
with  dire  and  painful  consequences  for  the 
female,  so  that  her  psyche  reverberates  with 
hidden  phyletic  memories  associated  with  her 
long  travail  as  mate  and  mother.  The  whole 
weight  of  social  training  which  the  young  girl 
ordinarily  receives  only  serves  to  emphasize 
this  reaction,  for  however  she  learns  the  details 
of  the  sexual  life,  it  appears  to  her  as  a  thing 
to  inspire  terror  as  well  as  fascination.  This 
element  of  aversion  is  induced  alike  by  the 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  179 

perverse  manner  in  which  most  mothers  impart 
information,  picturing  sexuality  as  an  emotion 
utterly  incompatible  with  native  refinement  of 
character;  or  by  gleaning  the  knowledge  from 
surreptitious  reading  matter,  since  the  books 
upon  the  subject  are  for  the  most  part  medical 
treatises  which  mention  the  painful  features  of 
the  first  coitus  and  loss  of  virginity,  and  de- 
scribe all  the  pathological  and  diseased  aspects 
of  a  function  which  is  normally  as  simply  and 
naturally  carried  out  as  most  other  instinctive 
activities.  ^'^ 

The  ideal  method  of  sexual  enlightenment/ 
would  be  the  impersonal  teaching  of  biological 
facts  to  the  child  in  the  course  of  its  school 
curriculum,  so  that  the  secret  of  reproduction 
would  be  understood  by  the  girl  at  an  age  when    . 
the  passionate  element  would  not  confuse  her  / 
judgment,  and  the  great  function  of  motherhood  \ 
would  come  to  stand  out  as  the  supremely  im- 
portant event  of  the  process.     Even  then,  the 
problem  would  only  be  lessened  to  the  extent 
that  this  natural  and  healthful  imparting  of 
knowledge  would  decrease  the  adolescent  con- 
flict by  removing  the  complicating  factors  of 


180  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

morbid  curiosity,  and  rebellion  against  facts 
hitherto  unsuspected  and  unknown.  The  neces- 
sity of  a  probation  period,  in  which  the 
awakening  sexual  energy  is  controlled  and 
turned  into  higher  channels  that  become  the 
foundation  for  the  fullest  and  richest  living,  is 
not  removed,  and  it  is  the  destruction  of  this 
supreme  ability  to  experience  the  noblest  emo- 
tions at  which  the  lowering  of  the  standards  of 
sexual  morality  aims. 

In  the  final  analysis,  then,  the  adolescent 
conflict  is  the  crisis  which  makes  or  mars  the 
future  of  the  individual,  not  only  in  the  matter 
of  personal  welfare,  but  also  from  the  stand- 
point of  social  efficiency.  It  is  the  transmuta- 
tion of  the  sexual  energy  into  the  righteous 
anger  of  the  social  reformer  that  makes  the 
world  continually  a  better  place  to  dwell  in; 
it  is  the  thrill  of  beauty  which  is  analogous  to 
the  ecstasy  of  the  sex  experience  that  has  given 
us  a  civilization  in  which  music,  literature  and 
art  are  the  highest  values ;  it  is  the  conversion 
of  the  love  of  the  mate  into  the  love  of  truth 
and  knowledge,  the  joy  of  creation  on  the  in- 
tellectual as  well  as  the  biological  plane,  that 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  181 

has  given  us  the  great  laws  and  principles  of 
scientific  discoveries;  and  it  is  the  final 
spiritualization  of  the  sexual  impulse  which  has 
fashioned  for  us  our  great  religious  systems, 
our  inspiring  philosophies,  and  the  high  ideals 
which  serve  to  turn  the  emotional  energy  to  the 
service  of  those  intellectual  faculties  with 
which  it  might  otherwise  spend  its  powers  in 
hopeless  conflict. 

If  we  regard  the  problem  of  the  adolescent 
girl  from  this  larger  viewpoint,  we  see  that  it 
is  not  merely  a  matter  of  preventing  her  loss  of 
sane  and  healthy  balance  with  which  we  are 
called  upon  to  deal,  but  a  question  of  a  make  or 
break  process,  in  which  it  is  as  deep  a  tragedy 
for  her  to  fall  short  of  the  ultimate  goal  of  the 
maximum  utilization  of  her  energy  on  both  the 
biological  and  social  levels,  as  it  is  for  her  to 
sink  into  the  depths  of  the  neurosis,  a  fate 
worse  only  in  degree,  not  in  kind. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY  FOR  CHAPTER  V 

1.  Adier,  Alfred.     The  Neurotic  Constitution.     456  pp. 

Moffat,  Yard  &  Co.    N.  Y.,  1917. 

2.  Azam,  E.    Double  Conscience,  Etat  Actuel  de  Felida 

X.  Impr.  de  Chaix.     Paris,  1883. 


182  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

3.  Baldwin,   James   Mai'k.     Genetic  Theory  of  Reality. 

355  pp.    Putnam's  Sons.    N.  Y.,  1915. 

4.  Baring-Gould,  S.    Lives  of  the  Saints.    12  vols.    Vol. 

10.     Hodges.     London,  1887. 

5.  Barrett.     Proceedings   of   the   Society   for   Psychical 

Research.     V.  11. 

6.  Dane,  Clemence.     A  Regiment  of  Women.     345  pp. 

Heinemann.    London,  1917. 

7.  Delbriiek,  A.     Die  Pathologische  Liige  und  Die  Psy- 

ehische  Abnoi-men  Schwindler.  131  pp.  Enke. 
Stuttgart,  1891. 

8.  Dooley,  Lucile.    Analysis  of  a  Case  of  Manie-Depres- 

sive  Psychosis  Showing  Well-marked  Regressive 
Stages.  Psychoanalytic  Rev.  V.  1.  Pp.  1-46. 
Nerv.  &  Ment.  Dis.  Pub.  Co.  Washington,  D.  C, 
Jan.,  1918. 

9.  Federn,  Paul.     Some  General  Remarks  on  the  Prin- 

ciples of  Pain-Pleasure  and  of  Reality.  Pp.  1-12. 
Psychoanalytic  Rev.  II.    N.  Y.,  1915. 

10.  Ferenezi,    Sandor.      Contributions   to   Psychoanalysis. 

288  pp.    Badger.    Boston,  1916. 

11.  Freud,  Sigmund.     Selected  Papers  on  Hysteria.     215 

pp.  Jour.  Nerv.  &  Ment.  Disease  Pub.  Co.  N.  Y., 
1912. 

12.  Hauptmann,  Gerhart.    Hannele:   A  Dream  Poem.    92 

pp.    Heinemann.    London,  1907. 

13.  Hall,  G.  Stanley.     A  Medium  in  the  Bud.     Pp.  144- 

159.  American  Jour.  Psychol.  XXIX,  2,  April, 
1918. 

14.    .     Educational  Problems.    2  Vols.    Apple- 
ton.    N.  Y.,  1911. 

15.  Healy,   Wm.     The   Individual   Delinquent.     830   pp. 

Little,  Brown  &  Co.     Boston,  1915. 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  183 

16.  Healy,  Wm.     Case  Studies  of  Mentally  and  Morally 

Abnormal    Types.     77   pp.     Harvard   Univ.   Press. 
Cambridge,  1912. 

17.    .      Pathological    Lying.     286    pp.      Little, 

Brown  &  Co.     Boston,  1915. 

18.  Janet,    Pierre.     The   Major   Symptoms   of   Hysteria. 

345  pp.     Macmillan.     N.  Y.,  1913. 

19.  Jving,  C.  G.    Psychology  of  the  Unconscious.     (Wan- 

delungen  und  Symbole  der  Libido.)     Pp.  566.    Mof- 
fat, Yard  &  Co.    N.  Y.,  1916. 

20.    .     Psychology  of  Dementia  Praecox.     153 

pp.    Jour.  Nei-v.  &  Ment.  Dis.  Pub.  Co.    N.  Y.,  1909. 

21.  Mercante,  Victor.    La  Crisis  de  la  Pubertad.    437  pp. 

Cabaut  y  Cia.    Buenos  Aires,  1918. 

22.  Pfister,  Oskar.    The  Hysteria  and  Mysticism  of  Mar- 

gareta  Ebner.     Zentralblatt  fiir  Psychoanalyses.   Pp. 
468-486,  1911. 

23.  Pick,   A.     Ueber  Pathologische   Traumerei   und  Ihre 

Beziehungen  zur  Hysterie.     Pp.  280-301.     Jahrb.  f. 
Psyehiatrie  u.  Neurologie.    V.  14,  1895-96. 

24.  Podmore,   Frank.     Modern   Spiritualism;   A   History 

and  a  Criticism.     Methuen,     2  vols.     London,  1902. 

25.  Prince,  Morton.     The  Dissociation  of  a  Personality. 

569  pp.    Longmans,  Green  &  Co.    N.  Y.,  1906. 

26.  Richard,  P.  A.  M.    Le  Mensonge  chez  la  Femme  Hys- 

terique.     (These  med.)     66  pp.     Y.  Cadoret.     Bor- 
deaux, 1902. 

27.  Sidis  and  Goodhart.     Multiple  Personality.     462  pp. 

Appleton.     N.  Y.,  1905. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE   ADOLESCENT    GIKL   AND   LOVE 

Love  the  center  of  girlish:  reveries ;  Scientific  studies  of  love ; 
Composite  sentiment,  mere  sexual  passion,  outgrowth 
of  the  sense  of  touch;  Finek's  conception  of  romantic 
love ;  Views  of  Carpenter  and  Mantegazza ;  Inadequacy 
of  these  scientific  formulae;  Philosophical  theories  of 
love;  Empedocles,  Judah  Leo,  Plato,  Schopenhauer, 
View  of  Renooz;  Metabolic  basis  of  sex  attraction; 
Weiniger's  male  and  female  plasm;  Blair  Bell's  sex 
complex;  Pearson's  statistical  studies;  Psychoanalytic 
view  of  compensation  through  love;  New  ideal  of  love 
and  the  adolescent  girl. 

There  is  probably  no  theme  which  is  so  con- 
stantly the  center  of  the  young  girl's  reveries 
as  that  of  love  and  marriage.  With  a  strange 
intermingling  of  shyness  and  fascination,  her 
thoughts  turn  irresistibly  to  this  all-absorbing 
subject.  She  weaves  wonderful  dreams  of  the 
fairy  prince  who  shall  one  day  come  gloriously 
into  her  life,  and  teach  her  the  whole,  sweet 
meaning  of  the  mysterious  word,  which  has 

184 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  185 

come  to  be  the  alpha  and  omega  of  her  existence. 
But,  in  spite  of  her  visions,  doubts  arise.  How 
will  she  recognize  love  when  it  comes?  How 
know  the  true  from  the  false  ?  For  it  cannot  but 
be  borne  in  upon  her  observing  mind,  uncritical 
though  it  may  be,  that  sad  mistakes  are  some- 
times made  in  the  name  of  love,  and  she  must 
not  add  to  these. 

In  this  dilemna,  she  knows  not  where  to  turn. 
No  text-book  offers  its  timely  aid ;  if  she  seeks 
advice  from  those  older  and  more  experienced 
than  herself,  she  gets  little  help  beyond  the 
comforting  assurance  that  her  problem  will 
work  itself  out  aright  in  due  time  and  that  her 
anxiety  is  needless.  Literature,  to  be  sure, 
deals  almost  exclusively  with  the  topic  which 
is  nearest  to  her  interests,  but  it  pictures  love 
so  variously  that  her  eager  readings  leave  her 
with  an  impression  so  hopelessly  confused  that 
she  may  well  despair  of  the  possibility  of  attain- 
ing any  definite  knowledge  in  this  line. 

For  long  ages,  it  was  the  poet,  alone,  who 
saw  the  all-impelling  force  of  love  as  a  uni- 
versal human  motive,  but  gradually  the  scien- 
tists, too,  began  to  recognize  its  position  as  an 


186  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

all-important  factor  in  the  affairs  of  mankind, 
and  attempted  to  subject  it  to  a  cold  and  im- 
partial analysis.  Let  us  briefly  review  their 
conclusions,  in  order  to  determine  whether  they 
can  be  of  any  pragmatic  value  to  the  adolescent 
girl  in  her  anxious  debates. 

Eibot,  in  his  Psychology  of  the  Emotions, 
was  the  first  to  advance  the  view  that  the  loye 
of  man  is  not  the  simple  physical  impulse  tip 
reproduction,  but  is  a  composite  of  variouB 
instincts,  in  which  sympathy,  tenderness,  and 
the  parental  feelings  blend^with  the  cruder  sex- 
ual emotions  to  produce  a  perfect  whole.  (19.) 
Henry  Drummond,  on  the  other  hand,  while 
also  pointing  out  the  complex  nature  of  human 
love,  makes  the  maternal  instinct  its  basis, 
rather  than  the  sexual  impulse.  (7:  p.  224.) 
Sutherland  {23)  and  Kropotkin  {14),  empha- 
sizing the  selective  value  of  mutual  aid,  think 
sympathy  is  the  essential  component  which  dif- 
ferentiates love  from  pure  sexuality;  while 
MacDougall,  the  most  modem  representative  of 
this  trend  of  thought,  agrees  with  Ribot  that 
love  is  sexuality  glorified  by  the  addition  of 
sympathy  and  the  tenderness  first  developed  in 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  187 

the  care  of  offspring.  Miss  Smith,  too,  from 
her  study  of  adolescent  love,  was  led  to  believe 
that  the  altruistic  emotions  based  on  the  gre- 
garious and  parental  instincts,  played  an 
important  role.     (22.) 

A  diametrically  opposed  theory  is  that  of  the 
French  psychologist,  Roux,  who  makes  the 
love  of  man  for  his  mate  a  wholly  sensual  mat- 
ter, based  on  the  sexual  needs  of  the  organism, 
reinforced  by  the  desire  for  voluptuous  pleas- 
ure. For  this  view,  the  sensations  from  the 
reproductive  organs  are  the  source  of  the  un- 
directed sexual  impulse,  but  the  specific  focus- 
ing of  the  erotic  nature  is  determined  by 
olfactory,  visual,  auditory,  and  even  tactual 
sensations.  Thus  the  perfume  of  the  hair, 
personal  beauty,  the  voice,  and  manner  of 
kissing  become  decisive  factors  in  the  choice  of 
a  mate.  (20.)  Bloch,  in  his  elaborate  volume 
entitled  T/ie  Sexual  Life  of  Our  Time,  is  in- 
clined to  a  similar  conception  of  the  love -life 
of  mankind,  but  adds  that  these  various  volup- 
tuous sensations  become  associated  with  more 
spiritualized   thoughts   and   feelings,    so    that 


188  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

through  the  body  the  personality  of  the  loved 
one  becomes  the  object  of  worship.     (4.) 

Alexander  Bain  makes  love  as  purely  a 
matter  of  sensation  as  Eoux  or  Bloch,  but  it  is 
the  tactual  sense  which  is  most  significant  in 
his  scheme,  for  he  makes  sheer  physical  con- 
tact— the  pleasure  of  the  *' animal  embrace" — 
the  root  of  sexuality  as  of  sympathy,  gre- 
gariousness,  maternal  love,  and  all  the  altruis- 
tic tendencies.  (2.)  Walter  Gallichan  also 
thinks  the  sense  of  touch  cannot  be  over- 
estimated as  a  factor  of  the  erotic  life.  He 
quotes  Gowers  to  the  effect  that  the  sexual  act 
is  a  skin  reflex,  and  subscribes  whole-heartedly 
to  this  statement.  Indeed,  Gallichan  declares 
that  this  is  the  one  criterion  by  which  the  inex- 
perienced maiden  may  recognize  her  real  mate, 
since  her  whole  being  must  thrill  at  the  least 
contact  with  the  man  who  possesses  a  true  at- 
traction for  her.  Through  his  caresses,  which 
appeal  thus  ardently  to  her  tactile  sense,  she 
unconsciously  feels  the  manhood  and  strength 
of  personality  and  physique  that  serves  the 
race.    (11.) 

For  Henry  Finck,  not  the  sexual  impulse,  but 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  189 

the  appeals  through  the  other  senses,  are  the 
criterion  by  which  we  may  distinguish  love  from 
lust.  We  may  compare  love  to  a  strain  of 
music,  in  which  sex  is  the  fundamental,  and  the 
overtones  are  all  those  things  which  go  to  de- 
termine individual  preference.  (9.)  Primitive 
love  was  a  mere  animal  impulse ;  not  until  the 
age  of  romantic  love,  which  is  distinctly  modern, 
did  a  truly  noble  and  unselfish  emotion  for 
members  of  the  opposite  sex  come  into  exist- 
ence. (5.)  This  type  of  affection  is  based  not 
only  upon  the  inclusion  of  the  tender,  protective 
elements  of  sympathy  and  the  parental  feelings 
in  the  attitude  toward  the  other  sex,  but  is  de- 
pendent upon  an  aesthetic  appreciation  of  the 
beauty  of  the  human  face  and  form  per  se. 
The  coyness  of  the  female,  and  delight  in  her 
beauty,  have  caused  man  to  develop  a  devotion 
for  woman  in  w^hich  the  brutal  element  of  sex 
passion  is  toned  down,  and  admiration  and 
reverence  are  the  uppermost  characteristics  of 
his  amorous  feelings. 

Edward  Carpenter  makes  the  desire  for 
union  the  central  point  of  love,  and  character- 
ises the  sexual  act  as  symbolic  of  the  deeper 


190  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

union  of  the  soul  which  exists  between  every 
truly  loving  couple.  Woman  experiences  this 
genuine  emotion  more  often  than  man,  for 
seldom  does  she  divorce  the  sexual  passion  from 
her  other  sentiments,  while  in  man  it  is  often 
a  quite  separate  part  of  his  nature.  (5.) 
Mantegazza,  in  his  Book  of  Love,  takes  a  similar 
stand,  emphasizing  the  fact  that  the  love  union 
is  a  union  of  the  soul  as  well  as  of  the  sense; 
and  asserting  that  woman  is  the  high  priestess 
of  love,  while  man  often  rests  content  with 
mere  physical  emotions  of  the  sexual  instinct. 
He  adds  that  the  love  which  different  individ- 
uals are  capable  of  feeling  is  as  widely  unlike 
as  their  temperaments,  and  attempts  to 
classify  the  various  types,  i.e.  tender,  contem- 
plative, sensual,  ferocious,  proud,  etc.     {15.) 

Conflicting  as  the  statements  thus  briefly 
epitomized  may  seem,  each  has  its  elements  of 
truth,  and  must  be  given  due  consideration  by 
the  adolescent  girl  in  her  attempts  to  solve  the 
problem  of  her  own  personal  happiness.  Yet, 
after  all,  they  are  too  narrow,  too  analytical, 
to  prove  of  lasting  satisfaction  to  her  active 
mentality ;  what  she  seeks  is  a  broader  view,  a 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  191 

more  synthetic  statement,  some  general  princi- 
ple to  which  she  can  cling  as  a  guide  among 
these  changing  factors,  as  first  one,  then  an- 
other looms  up  larger,  or  nearer  at  hand,  and 
threatens  to  obliterate  the  others.  But  the 
scientist  has  no  more  to  offer,  for  it  is  his  busi- 
ness to  analyze;  we  must,  therefore,  have 
recourse  to  philosophy,  which  in  the  very  na- 
ture of  things  should  be  synthetic  in  character, 
and  possess  a  widely  sweeping  scope. 

When  we  turn  to  the  history  of  philosophy 
for  guidance,  we  find  little  that  is  even  remotely 
applicable  to  the  problem  of  love  between  the 
sexes.  Empedocles,  for  example,  made  Love 
and  Hate  the  ruling  forces  of  the  universe, 
picturing  love  as  an  attractive  force  which 
tended  to  draw  all  things  together  into  a  blessed 
sphere,  while  hate,  the  repulsive  power,  exerted 
all  its  energy  in  an  attempt  to  separate  the 
elements  and  produce  a  state  of  chaos.  Thus 
abstractly  spoke  most  of  the  Greek  philoso- 
phers, for  as  a  whole  they  dealt  with  universal 
processes,  not  with  human  life  and  activities. 
Judah  Leo's  conception  became  more  concrete, 
for  although  he  defined  love  as  cosmic  attrac- 


192  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

tion,  he  distinguished  natural  love,  the  attrac- 
tion between  inanimate  objects,  from  the  sen- 
sible love  existing  among  animals,  and  the 
rational  love  peculiar  to  men,  angels  and  God. 

Plato,  in  one  of  his  myths,  wove  a  fanciful 
suggestion  of  the  cause  of  sex  attraction,  which 
has  been  so  paralleled  in  later  times  that  it 
should  be  mentioned  in  this  connection.  Ac- 
cording to  Plato's  idea,  man  and  woman  were 
originally  united  in  one  person.  In  his  over- 
weening lust  for  power,  this  primeval  human 
type  attempted  to  usurp  the  kingdom  of  the 
gods,  and  was  cut  in  two  by  the  great  God  Zeus, 
in  order  that  his  strength  might  be  diminished 
by  half.  Then  the  two  halves  of  each  person 
went  seeking  each  other,  and  when  they  chanced 
to  meet,  they  fell  into  each  other's  arms,  and 
were  like  to  die  of  hunger,  so  that  Zeus  was 
forced  to  create  sex  to  save  mankind  from  ex- 
tinction. 

It  is  not  so  long  a  leap  from  this  myth  of 
Plato's  to  Schopenhauer's  belief  that  comple- 
mentary types  fall  in  love  with  each  other, 
every  person  recognizing  and  worshipping  in 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  193 

his  mate  the  qualities  which  are  lacking  in 
himself. 

* '  The  growing  inclination  of  the  two  lovers  is 
really  already  the  will  to  live  of  the  new  in- 
dividual which  they  can  and  desire  to  produce ; 
even  in  the  meeting  of  their  longing  glances  its 
new  life  breaks  out,  and  announces  itself  as  a 
future  individuality  harmoniously  and  well 
composed.  They  feel  the  longing  for  an  actual 
mind  and  fusing  together  into  a  single  beings 
this  longing  receives  its  fulfillment  in  the  child 
which  is  produced  by  them,  as  that  in  which  the 
qualities  transmitted  by  them  both  live  on,  fused 
and  united  in  one  being."  {21:  p.  342.)  The 
lovers  are  helpless  in  the  grasp  of  the  emotion 
because  it  is  the  will  of  the  race  expressing 
itself  through  them.  It  is  for  the  purpose  of 
producing  a  child  which  shall  conform  to  the  ge- 
neric type  of  perfection  that  nature  has  or- 
dained the  powerful  attraction  of  opposites  for 
one  another.  If  the  lovers  expect  to  find  happi- 
ness in  their  union  they  deceive  themselves,  for 
in  its  very  character  it  precludes  any  sympa- 
thetic and  harmonious  basis  for  marital  life. 
The  momentary  illusion  of  happiness  is  but  the 


194  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

glamour  which  nature  casts  over  the  young  peo- 
ple in  order  to  insure  the  welfare  of  the  race. 

Later  writers  seized  upon  the  idea  thus 
formulated  by  Plato  and  Schopenhauer,  and' 
attempted  to  work  out  on  a  more  scientific  basis 
the  principle  of  compensation  which  these  two 
philosophers  had  implied  in  their  treatment  of 
sexual  attraction.  Renooz,  in  his  Psychologie 
Compafee  de  V Homme  et  de  la  Femme,  held 
to  this  attraction  of  opposites  theory,  and  de- 
scribed man  as  a  sensory  apparatus,  while  wo- 
man was  considered  constructive  and  nutritive. 
But  Renooz  wandered  into  a  maze  of  absurd 
detail  in  the  presentation  of  his  hypothesis,  de- 
claring man  to  be  attracted  by  the  blood  of  the 
woman,  by  her  flesh,  and  repulsed  by  her  ner- 
vous elements,  while  the  woman's  love  for  the 
man  is  simply  a  reversal  of  this  process.  That 
woman  is  essentially  a  creature  of  flesh  and 
blood  is  sufficiently  proven  by  the  phenomena 
of  menstruation  and  ovulation,  he  thinks,  while 
the  cerebro-spinal  system  of  the  male  is  more 
intimately  connected  with  sex.  After  coitus  the 
nervous  system  of  woman  becomes  more 
predominant,  while  the  fleshly  element  is  exalted 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  195 

in  man,  so  that  they  no  longer  attract  each 
other,  until  the  balance  swings  back  and  makes 
them  at  opposite  poles  again.     (18.) 

Following  the  lead  of  the  biological  theories 
of  Geddes  and  Thompson  (10;  21;  24),  there 
came  a  group  of  writers  who  explained  the 
differences  between  the  male  and  female  organ- 
isms as  a  matter  of  metabolism.  Drawing  their 
analogy  from  the  ovum  and  sperm  cells,  they 
looked  upon  the  male  as  primarily  catabolic,  the 
female  being  essentially  given  over  to  anabolic 
activities.  Thus  sex  attraction  in  humanity 
becomes  merely  a  more  complex  form  of  the 
chemical  affinity  which  governed  the  conjugation 
of  the  unicellular  protozoans,  and  grows  out  of 
the  attempt  to  preserve  the  metabolic  balance 
of  the  individual  and  the  species. 

Weiniger  advanced  a  wholly  different  ex- 
planation and  postulated  a  male  plasm 
(arrhenoplasm)  and  a  female  plasm  {tJiely- 
plasm).  He  stated  that  every  cell  in  the  body 
is  composed  of  plasm  lying  somewhere  on  the 
curve  between  these  two  extremes,  although  it 
never  happens  that  there  is  bom  an  ideal  man 
or  woman  in  whom  the  plasm  is  wholly  male  or 


196  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

wholly  female.  It  is  the  attempt  to  attain  abso- 
lute masculinity  and  femininity  which  occasions 
love,  the  desire  for  union.  Thus,  the  man  who 
is  %  male  and  l^  female  mates  with  the  woman 
who  is  %  female  and  i/4  male,  so  that  marriage 
produces  a  complete  man  and  a  complete 
woman.  He  is  as  pessimistic  as  Schopenhauer 
about  the  happiness  of  the  union,  however,  and 
declares  that  the  female  plasm  is  so  inferior 
that  man  only  retains  any  love  for  woman  by 
projecting  upon  her  his  own  personality  and 
entering  upon  a  course  of  entire  self-deception. 
(25.) 

Blair  Bell's  experimental  work  was  the  final 
word  in  this  long  quest  for  the  fundamental 
characteristic  which  was  the  distinguishing  fea- 
ture of  sex,  and  resulted  in  placing  the  matter 
on  a  firm  scientific  foundation.  Prof.  Bell 
discovered  that  the  ultimate  basis  of  sexuality 
was  the  functioning  of  the  whole  system  of 
ductless  glands,  and  depended  almost  entirely 
upon  the  interaction  of  the  internal  secretions 
produced  by  the  endocritic  system,  which  in- 
cludes not  only  the  ovaries  and  testicles,  but  the 
adrenals,  thyroids,  thymus,  etc.     (5.) 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  197 

Since  masculinity  and  femininity  thus  rest 
only  in  part  upon  the  reproductive  organs 
proper,  it  follows  that  Weiniger  's  conception  of 
varying  degrees  of  masculinity  and  femininity 
holds  good,  but  whether  this  plays  so  exact  a 
part  in  mating  as  he  believed  is  an  open  ques- 
tion. Certainly,  the  statistical  researches  of 
Karl  Pearson  do  not  go  to  support  this  theory, 
for  in  so  far  as  such  crude  physical  traits  as 
height,  color  of  hair  and  eyes,  etc.,  go,  Pearson 
has  been  able  to  express  his  conclusions  in  the 
law  ''that  like  tends  to  mate  with  like."     (17.) 

On  the  other  hand,  the  recent  psychoanalytic 
studies,  with  their  emphasis  on  the  feelings  of 
weakness  and  limitation  which  oppress  the  ego, 
suggest  that  all  these  philosophic  and  semi- 
scientific  theories  which  make  love  the  union 
of  opposites  are  merely  an  attempt  to  project 
a  fundamental  subjective  tendency  into  the  ob- 
jective world.  For  it  may  well  be  that  we  love 
those  whom  we  image  as  being  the  fortunate 
possessors  of  traits  of  personality  that  we 
would  fain  have  exemplified  in  our  own  individ- 
ual existence,  and  that  in  uniting  ourselves  with 
those  whom  we  believe  to  be  thus  endowed,  we 


198  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

are  simply  striving  to  satisfy  the  primeval 
•  longing  to  feel  ourselves  a  complete  and  per- 
fect whole.  Certain  it  is  that  such  a  longing 
for  organic  wholeness  is  one  of  the  strongest 
of  our  innate  tendencies,  and  who  can  doubt 
that  we  worship  in  others  those  qualities  which 
we  see  inherent  in  our  ego-ideals,  but  which  are 
often  sadly  lacking  in  our  everyday  existence? 
If  this  be  true,  we  can  understand  why  our 
affection  for  the  beloved  seems  so  eminently 
rational,  while  we  can  perceive  no  adequate 
reason  for  its  return. 

■<  Whether  this  theory,  too,  is  more  fancy  or 
fact,  it  is  no  more  optimistic  than  the  views 
of  Schopenhauer  and  Weiniger,  for  the  mating 
of  psychical  opposites  does  not  necessarily 
promise  lasting  happiness,  while  the  danger  of 
creating  a  false  ideal  and  experiencing  dis- 
illusioning disappointment  is  exceedingly  great. 
Thus  it  appears  that  philosophical  theories 
have  little  more  application  to  the  problem  of 
the  adolescent  girl  than  did  the  more  strictly 
scientific  treatments,  for  although  they  give  her 
a  broad  outlook  and  steadying  perspective  in 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  199 

her  time  of  stress,  yet  they  do  not  answer  her 
greatest  question: 

''What  is  the  ideal  of  love  which  I  must  set 
up  for  myself,  and  how  can  I  achieve  a  mating 
that  will  endure  in  all  the  fineness  of  its  spirit 
after  the  first  ecstatic  flush  has  died  away,  and 
saner  living  is  once  more  the  order  of  the  day?" 

This  quest  of  the  adolescent  girl  for  an  inter- 
pretation of  love  which  shall  be  adequate  to  the 
needs  of  life,  is  but  an  expression  of  the  growing 
unrest  of  the  times  in  matters  concerning  the 
relationships  between  the  sexes,  and  is  an  in- 
tegral part  of  the  mysterious  force  ''which  in 
the  course  of  evolution  has  raised  instinct  into 
passion,  passion  into  love,  and  which  is  now 
striving  to  raise  love  itself  to  an  even  greater 
love."    {13:  p.  46.) 

The  unhappiness  of  the  modern  marriage 
does  not  rest  entirely  upon  the  mistakes  made 
by  the  two  partners  in  estimating  each  other's 
sexual  nature,  as  Havelock  Ellis  and  other 
writers  have  insisted,  for  the  present  genera- 
tion, in  America,  at  least,  is  not  apt  to  be 
reticent  during  the  engagement  period,  and  for 
the  most  part  have  learned  to  know  and  under- 


200  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

stand  each  other  intimately  within  that  time. 
It  is  rather  in  the  fundamental  philosophy  of 
life,  in  the  whole  conception  of  the  meaning  of 
love  in  the  cosmic  process,  that  the  great  mis- 
take is  made,  so  that  fires  that  once  burned 
with  an  intense  flame,  flicker  and  flare  out  as 
physical  passion  is  sated,  and  can  only  be 
rekindled  at  some  new  torch. 

Thus  far,  there  have  been  two  main  tenden- 
cies apparent  in  the  attempt  to  formulate  a 
genuine  philosophy  of  love ; — one,  a  reaction  to 
the  centuries  of  asceticism  which  oppressed 
mankind,  has  emphasized  the  naturalness  of  the 
sexual  instinct  until  man  swung  to  the  opposite 
extreme,  and  began  to  use  it  wholly  for  his  own 
individual  pleasure;  the  other,  establishing  it- 
self upon  firm  scientific  foundations,  set  up  the 
eugenic  ideal,  and  while  admitting  the  healthi- 
ness of  the  instinctive  life,  demanded  that  it  be 
used  only  for  its  legitimate  purpose, — the  good 
of  the  race.  Since  it  is  only  too  apparent  that 
it  is  the  eugenic  conscience  which  is  tending  to 
influence  the  mores,  and  thus  to  become  a  vital 
part  of  the  social  life,  it  seems  almost  that  we 
must  revert  to  the  old  Schopenhauerian  pessim- 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  201 

ism,  and  regard  love  not  as  a  thing  for  personal 
enjoyment,  but  as  an  irresistible  force  which 
exists  only  in  the  interests  of  the  species. 

There  is  a  deeper  view,  however,  which,  while 
it  recognizes  the  ancient  conflict  between  the 
individualistic  and  the  racial  tendencies,  sees 
the  underlying  harmony  which  is  within  our 
grasp  if  we  are  only  wise  enough  and  patient 
enough  to  be  worthy  of  its  attainment.  For  in 
the  final  analysis,  it  is  only  as  we  truly  sur- 
render our  little  lives  to  the  fuller  impulses  of 
the  whole  universal  process  that  we  can  attain 
happiness,  and  so  it  is  that  the  love  which  exists 
for  and  in  one  person  can  never  reach  the 
heights  of  perfection  accessible  to  the  deeper 
affection  which  reaches  out  through  the  loved 
one  to  contact  with  the  richer  life  of  all  human- 
ity. It  is  not  merely  the  merging  of  the  love 
for  one  another  into  a  common  love  for  off- 
spring that  insures  its  fullness  and  continuity, 
for  there  are  those  to  whom,  for  various 
reasons,  the  joy  of  parenthood  must  be  denied. 
In  order  to  be  real  and  lasting,  love  must  not 
stop  at  mere  mutual  pleasure ;  it  must  be  crea- 
tive, for  it  is  by  its  very  nature  dynamic,  a  part 


202  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

of  the  great  elan  vital  which  is  the  ultimate 
source  of  all  existence. 

Therefore,  as  Ellen  Key  has  said,  *'Love 
must  give  life;  if  not  new  living  beings  then 
new  values;  it  must  enrich  the  lovers  them- 
selves, and  through  them  mankind."  {13:  p.  47.) 
''But  the  band  which  attaches  it  to  humanity- 
may  be  woven  of  several  materials,"  Miss  Key 
continues,  "the  gift  to  the  race  may  express 
itself  in  various  ways.  In  one  case  a  great  emo- 
tion may  bring  about  a  tragic  fate  which  opens 
the  eyes  of  humanity  to  the  red  abysses  it  con- 
tains within  itself.  Another  time  it  may  create 
a  great  happiness  which  sheds  its  radiance 
around  the  happy  ones,  illuminating  all  who 
come  near  them.  In  many  cases,  love  translates 
itself  into  intellectual  achievements,  or  useful 
social  work;  in  most  it  results  in  two  more 
perfect  human  beings,  and  new  creatures,  still 
more  perfect  than  themselves."  (13:  p.  48.) 

At  the  same  time  that  the  individual  gives 
up  his  will  to  the  great  racial  forces  which 
sweep  through  his  soul,  and  lives  in  them  and 
for  them,  it  is  possible  for  him  to  realize  the 
highest  personal  joy  in  the  very  emotion  which 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  203 

impels  him  to  live  for  other  beings  than  him- 
self. For  besides  the  primeval  urge  which 
draws  man  and  woman  together  for  the  purpose 
of  transmitting  the  vital  energy  in  its  biological 
continuity,  there  is  another  element  which  en- 
ters into  human  love — the  desire  to  lose  oneself 
in  a  larger  life  than  that  which  is  permitted  by 
the  narrow  limitations  of  consciousness.  It  is 
the  same  desire  which  impelled  the  mystics  of 
old  to  seek  forgetfulness  of  self  and  escape 
from  the  narrowness  of  earthly  existence 
through  union  with  God,  and  which,  denied  this 
access  to  the  peace  that  passeth  all  understand- 
ing, can  achieve  the  same  ecstatic  state  of 
perfect  tranquillity  only  as  the  individual  is  able 
to  feel  himself  entering  into  the  inner  life  of 
another  personality,  until  the  two  are  fused  into 
one  perfect  whole.  Ellen  Key  has  expressed 
this  desire  very  simply  and  lucidly ; 

"The  new  love  is  still  the  natural  attraction 
of  man  and  woman  to  each  other  for  the  con- 
tinuance of  the  race.  .  .  .  But  above  this  eter- 
nal nature  of  love,  beyond  this  primeval  cause  of 
marriage,  another  longing  has  grown  with  in- 
creasing strength.    This  is  not  directed  toward 


204  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

the  continuance  of  the  race.  It  has  sprung  from 
man's  sense  of  loneliness  within  his  race,  a 
loneliness  which  is  ever  greater  in  proportion 
as  his  soul  is  exceptional.  It  is  the  pining  for 
that  human  soul  which  is  to  release  our  own 
from  this  torment  of  solitude ;  a  torment  which 
was  formerly  allayed  by  repose  in  God,  but 
which  now  seeks  its  rest  with  an  equal,  with  a 
soul  that  has  itself  lain  wakeful  with  eyelids 
heated  from  the  same  longing;  a  soul  empow- 
ered by  love  to  the  miracle  of  redeeming  our 
soul — as  itself  by  ours  is  redeemed — from  the 
sense  of  being  a  stranger  upon  the  earth;  a 
soul  before  whose  warmth  our  own  lets  fall  the 
covering  that  the  world's  coldness  has  imposed 
upon  it,  and  shows  its  secrets  and  its  glories 
without  shame."    (13:  p.  71.) 

Yet  it  is  not  mere  loneliness  that  thus  impels 
us,  but  also  that  inner  striving  for  perfection 
which  would  have  us  embody  in  our  own  being 
the  perfect  racial  type,  and  which  depresses  us 
as  we  unconsciously  feel  how  far  short  we  fall 
of  that  ultimate  goal  of  evolutionary  perfection, 
a  goal  which  may  never  be  attained,  but  toward 
which  the  great  stream  of  life  is  ever  flowing. 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  205 

To-day,  indeed,  we  arc  so  far  from  that  ultimate 
end  and  aim  of  life  that  the  fusion  of  our  single 
personality  with  one  other  can  only  temporarily 
quiet  the  unrest  within  our  soul.  Then  it  is 
that  we  must  reach  out  through  this  little  in- 
timacy to  enter  into  the  larger  life  of  humanity 
as  a  whole,  for  only  as  we  conceive  ourselves 
as  a  part  of  the  entire  organic  existence  of  the 
species  can  we  achieve  the  feeling  of  wholeness 
which  brings  lasting  contentment. 

In  this  very  process,  we  are  at  the  same  time 
fulfilling  two  other  purposes,  for  as  it  is  through 
the  medium  of  the  beloved  person  that  we  enter 
into  the  life  of  the  race,  so  our  love  for  that 
person  becomes  rich  and  full  of  meaning,  while 
in  so  far  as  we  feel  ourselves  an  integral  part 
of  all  humanity,  we  are  impelled  to  work  for  its 
good,  so  that  our  love  becomes  creative  and 
unselfish,  in  harmony  with  its  original  purpose. 
Thus,  in  the  final  synthesis,  the  destinies  of  the 
individual  and  of  the  race  become  so  deeply 
merged  that  they  are  one  and  inseparable,  and 
the  modern  philosophic  dualism — the  conflict 
between  these  two  forces — vanishes   as   com- 


206  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

pletely  as  the  vain  argninent  over  spirit  versus 
matter. 

In  his  poem  The  New  World,  Witter  Bynner 
has  voiced  this  conception  of  love  in  a  way  that 
no  one  else  has  ever  done,  and  describes  how 
the  affection  that  broadens  in  its  scope  becomes 
at  the  same  time  more  deeply  and  lastingly 
fixed  upon  the  individual  from  whom  it  obtains 
its  first  impulsion. 

"We  stand  together  on  our  lake's  edge,  ajid  the 
mystery 
Of  love  has  made  us  one,  as  day  is  made  of  night  and 

night  of  day. 
Aware  of  one  identity 
Within  each  other,  we  can  say: 
*  I  shall  be  everything  you  are. ' 
We  are  uplifted  till  we  touch  a  star. 
We  know  that  overhead 
Is  nothing  more  austere,  more  starry,  or  more  deep 

to  understand 
Than  is  our  union,  human  hand  in  hand. 
.  .  .  But  over  our  lake  come  strangers — a  crowded 

launch,  a  lonely  sailing  boy, 
A  mile  away  a  train  bends  by.     In  every  car 
Strangers  are  travelling,  each  with  particular 
And  unkind  preference  like  ours,  with  privacy 
Of  understanding,  with  especial  joy 
Like  ours.     Celia,  Celia,  why  should  there  be 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  207 

Distrust  between  ourselves  and  them,  disunity? 

.  .  .  How  careful  we  have  been 

To  trim  this  little  circle  that  we  tread, 

To  set  a  bar 

To  strangei-s  and  forbid  them : — Are  they  not  as  we, 

Our  very  likeness  and  our  nearest  kin, 

How  can  we  shut  them  out  and  let  stars  in? 

"She  looked  along  the  lake.     And  when  I  heard 

her  speak, 
The  sun  fell  on  the  boy's  white  sail  and  her  white 

cheek. 
'I  touch  them  all  through  you,'  she  said.    *I  cannot 

know  them  now  deeply  and  truly  as  my  very 

own,  except  through  you, 
Except  through  one  or  two 
Interpreters. 
But  not  a  moment  stirs 

Here  between  us,  binding  and  interweaving  us, 
That  does  not  bind  these  others  to  our  care' 

"  'But,  Celia,  Celia,  tell  me  what  to  be,' 
I  said,  'and  what  to  do, 
To  keep  your  faith  in  me 
To  witness  mine  in  you ! ' 

"She  answered,  'Dare  to  see 
In  every  man  and  woman  everywhere 
The  making  of  us  two. 
See  none  that  we  can  spare 
From  the  creation  of  our  soul. 
Swear  to  be  whole. 


208  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

Let  not  your  faith  abate, 

But  establish  it  in  persons  and  exalt  it  in  the  state. '  ' ' 

It  is  thus,  through  the  clear  intuitions  of  the 
woman's  heart,  as  exemplified  in  Ellen  Key, 
and  through  the  inspired  genius  of  the  poet, 
guiding  the  pen  of  Witter  Bynner,  that  we  are 
able  to  formulate  a  final  answer  to  the  queries 
that  the  adolescent  girl  is  making,  and  to  give 
her  an  ideal  of  love  that  not  all  the  friction  of 
everyday  life  can  cause  to  tarnish  or  grow  dulL 
It  is  a  conception  which  recognizes  and  includes 
the  findings  of  the  scientists  and  philosophers 
that  have  gone  before,  but  it  is  much  more  than 
that.  It  is  an  interpretation  which  takes  ac- 
count of  the  instinctive  needs  of  the  organism, 
but  does  not  fail  to  realize  the  paramount  sig- 
nificance of  those  deeper  longings  of  the  human 
soul  which  have  been  engendered  in  the  course 
of  a  long  evolutionary  process,  which,  although 
it  may  have  had  its  beginnings  in  a  mere  chem- 
ical combination,  is  now  not  to  be  understood 
by  any  simple  knowledge  of  biochemical  laws. 

Thus  we  are  able  to  define  love  not  as  the 
mere  physical  attraction  of  one  sex  for  the 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  209 

other, — although  the  importance  of  mutual  de- 
sire as  a  factor  in  marital  relationships  must 
never  be  minimized, — but  as  the  attraction  of 
sex  plus  common  interests  and  sympathies, 
which  creates  a  happy  and  harmonious  fusion 
of  personalities  into  an  organic  whole.  And 
the  acid  test  which  enables  us  to  distinguish  the 
true  love  from  the  false  is  whether  its  eagerness 
can  be  a  transforming  glow  that  enables  us  to 
feel  that  deep  and  abiding  love  of  the  human 
race  which  Nicolai  says  is  the  only  real  and 
worthy  religious  emotion,  or  whether  it  nar- 
rows our  outlook  so  that  we  see  the  existence 
only  of  ourselves  and  one  other. 

The  love  which  absorbs  all  the  energies  of 
the  lover  in  ministering  to  the  foibles  of  the 
loved  one  is  not  the  love  we  need  to-day.  We 
need  the  love  that  renews  and  replenishes  its 
energies  in  the  love  of  its  mate,  to  turn  its  forces 
outward  again,  into  ever  widening  social  and 
racial  expressions.  For  this  is  the  love  that  is 
eternal,  the  love  that  brings  to  its  fortunate 
possessor  the  joy  of  fulfillment  that  is  beyond 
all  expectations,  and  at  the  same  time  carries 


210  .  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

out  the  great  cosmic  purpose  for  which  it  was 
created. 

It  is  this  great  and  ideal  love  which  the  girl 
of  the  present  generation  is  coming  to  demand, 
and  it  will  be  even  more  insisted  upon  by  the 
next  generation.  For  as  yet  it  is,  for  the  most 
part,  only  slowly  taking  shape  in  the  nebulae 
of  the  unconscious  soul  of  woman.  Man  is  even 
slower  to  understand  it,  since  he  is  more  used 
to  receiving  than  giving  all  in  love,  while  wo- 
man has  back  of  her  a  long  history  of  vicarious 
fulfillment  through  her  offspring,  and  is  thus 
accustomed  to  entering  into  the  life  of  others. 

Meanwhile,  the  girl  of  to-day  is  experiment- 
ing vainly  in  the  attempt  to  settle  the  vague 
unrest  which  this  faint  foreshadowing  has  set 
astir  within  her  being,  and  is  attempting  to 
work  out  her  problem  by  the  costly  method  of 
trial  and  error.  Only  when  her  longing  for  the 
perfect  union  of  body  and  mind,  with  its  poten- 
tialities for  unlimited  projection  into  the  life  of 
mankind,  is  definitely  formulated  in  her  con- 
sciousness, and  when  man,  too,  has  come  to  see 
her  viewpoint,  and  is  willing  to  do  his  share 
toward  the  realization  of  this  new  ideal  of  mar- 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  211 

riage,  shall  we  see  a  cessation  of  all  the  anxiety 
and  misgivings  which  now  torture  the  minds  of 
mankind  in  their  quest  for  the  perfect  and  abid- 
ing love. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY  FOR  CHAPTER  VI 

1.  Grant  Allen.    Falling  in  Love  and  Other  Essays.    355 

pp.    Appleton.    N.  Y.,  1890. 

2.  Bain,  Alexander.     Emotions  and  the  Will.     Pp.  605. 

Longmans.     London,  1899. 

3.  Bell,  W.  Blair.    The  Sex  Complex.    233  pp.    Bailliere, 

Tindall  &  Cox.     London,  1916. 

4.  Bloch,  Ivan    (Eugen  Duhren).     Sexual  Life  of  Our 

Time.     790  pp.     Rebman.     London,  1908. 

5.  Carpenter,  Edward.    Love's  Coming  of  Age.    168  pp. 

Labour  Press.    Manchester,  1897. 

6.  Danville,  Gaston.     La  Psychologic  de  I'Amour.     169 

pp.    Bailliere.     Paris,  1894. 

7.  Drummond,    Henry.      The   Ascent    of   Man.      Lowell 

Lectures.    346  pp.     J.  Pott  &  Co.    N.  Y.,  1894. 

8.  Finck,  Henry  T.     Primitive  Love  and  Love  Stories. 

851  pp.     Seribner's.     N.  Y.,  1899. 

9.    .      Romantic   Love   and   Personal   Beauty. 

Maemillan.     N.  Y.,  1891. 

10.  Finot,  Jean.    Problems  of  the  Sexes.    408  pp.    Put- 

nam's.   N.  Y.,  1913. 

11.  Galliehan,  Walter  M.     The  Psychology  of  Marriage. 

P.  194.    Laurie.    London,  1918. 

12.  Geddes   &   Thompson.      Evolution   of   Sex.      P.    322. 

Seribner's.     N.  Y.,  1901. 

13.  Key,  Ellen.     Love  and  Marriage.     399  pp.    Putnam. 

N.  Y.,  1911. 


212  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

14.  Kropotkin,  P.  A.    Mutual  Aid.    P.  348.    Heinemann. 

London,  1902, 

15.  Mantegazza,   Paolo.      The   Book   of   Love.     232    pp. 

Amer.-Neo-Latin  Lib.    N.  Y.,  1917. 

16.  Miehelet,  Jules.    L'amour;  Etude  par  Jules  Lemaitre. 

464  pp.     Calmaun-Levy.     Paris,  1859, 

17.  Pearson,  Karl,     The  Grammar  of  Science.     3d  Edit. 

P.  Black.    London,  1911. 

18.  Renooz,   C.     Psychologie   Comparee   de  L'Homme  et 

de  La  Femme.    576  pjj.     Bibliotheque  de  la  Nou- 
velle  Encyclopedie.     Paris,  1898. 

19.  Ribot,  Theodore.  Psychology  of  the  Emotions.  455  pp. 

Scribner's,    N.  Y.,  1897. 

20.  Rovix,  Joauny.     Psychologie  de  L'instinct  Sexuel.     96 

pp.     Bailliere  et  fils.     Paris,  1899. 

21.  Schopenhauer,  Arthur,    The  World  as  Will  and  Idea. 

3  vols.    Paul,  Trench,  Triibner  &  Co.    London,  1888. 

22.  Smith,  Theodate  L.     Types  of  Adolescent  Affection. 

Pp,  178-203.    Ped.  Sem.  XI,  1904, 

23.  Sutherland,   Alexander.     Origin   and   Growth   of  the 

Moral  Instinct.     2  vols.     Longmans,   Green  &  Co. 
London  and  N.  Y.,  1898. 

24.  Thomas,  W.  I.     A  Difference  in  the  Metabolism  of 

the  Sexes.     63  pp.     Reprint  Am.  J,  Sociol.  Ill,  1, 
Univ,  Press,     Chicago,  July,  1897, 

25.  Weiniger,  Otto.    Sex  and  Character.    356  pp,    Heine- 

mann.   London,  1906. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  AND  HBE  FUTUBE 

Varied  role  of  woman  in  the  social  life  during  the  war; 
Effect  of  the  war  on  sex  relations: — Raping  of  con- 
quered women,  war  brides,  illegitimacy;  Attitude  of 
the  American  girl  to  the  soldier;  Results  of  this  lower- 
ing of  sexual  morality  on  society  and  on  the  young 
girl ;  Effect  of  war  on  political  status  of  woman ;  Posi- 
tion of  woman  in  the  social  scheme; — Schoonmaker's 
conception,  Kidd's  vision  of  woman  as  the  embodiment 
of  love,  Madeline  Doty's  summary  of  what  she  has 
done;  Responsibility  which  rests  upon  the  adolescent 
girl;  New  feminine  art  and  literature  needed;  The 
religious  belief  of  the  adolescent  girl: — Nicolai's  inter- 
pretation of  Christianity  as  a  cosmic  humanism. 

If  we  are  to  discuss  the  possibilities  which 
the  future  may  hold  for  the  adolescent  girl  with 
any  degree  of  insight,  we  must  first  of  all  con- 
sider the  effect  which  the  far-reaching  ramifica- 
tions of  the  World  War  have  had  upon  her 
present  status,  for  it  has  touched  her  life  at 
many  points,  and  wrought  changes  in  her  per- 
sonal life  and  in  social  conditions  that  bid  fair 

213 


214  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

to  have  a  significant  bearing  upon  her  ultimate 
fate.  In  response  to  the  call  of  her  country's 
need,  she  entered  every  field  of  industry  in  all 
the  warring  nations,  or,  obedient  to  the  larger 
voice  of  humanity,  left  the  shelter  of  home  to 
minister  to  the  soldier,  as  he  returned  tired, 
hungry  or  wounded  from  the  trenches.  In  Rus- 
sia, she  went  forth  to  battle  with  the  foe,  not 
individually,  but  in  a  solid  phalanx,  nerved  by 
the  supreme  will  to  save  her  country  and  her 
people  from  destruction,  and  borne  up  by  an 
impersonal  love  of  the  fatherland  which  was 
even  greater  than  her  natural  feminine  aversion 
to  inflicting  bodily  pain.    {3;  5.) 

It  is  in  the  field  of  sexual  relationships  that 
the  war  has  wrought  its  greatest  influence  on 
the  life  of  the  adolescent  girl,  however,  for  in 
all  its  phases,  it  has  tended  to  reduce  the  love- 
life  of  humanity  to  its  more  primitive  levels, 
and  thus  has  retarded  immeasurably  the  reali- 
zation of  the  higher  ideal  of  love  which  is  the 
next  logical  step  in  the  evolutionjbf  iha^  race. 
The  mosf  brutalizing  of  the  sexual  tendencies 
which  the  war  brought  out  was  the  raping  of 
the  women  of  the  invaded  countries.    What  this 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  215 

may  mean  in  sheer  mental  anguish  to  the  young 
girls  thus  cruelly  awakened  to  the  realities  of 
life  is  poignantly  expressed  by  Annie  Vivanti 
Chartres  in  her  book  The  Outrage,  an  authentic 
account  of  the  sufferings  of  a  typical  Belgian 
family  at  the  hands  of  the  German  invaders.  (3.) 

When  the  Germans  entered  their  home,  Louise,  the 
young  wife,  and  her  sister  Cheri  were  forced  to  en- 
dure the  lascivious  embrace  of  the  enemy,  while  the 
little  Mireille,  lashed  to  a  staircase,  saw  the  brutal 
officer  have  his  will  with  Cheri 's  unconscious  body. 
True  to  Freudian  laws,  this  precocious  initiation  into 
the  mysteries  of  the  procreative  act  inflicted  a  psychic 
trauma  on  Mireille 's  stricken  mind,  which  resulted  in 
an  hysterical  conversion  downward  so  that  she  lost 
not  only  the  ability  to  describe  her  horrible  vision,  but 
all  power  of  speech. 

Tortured  by  the  sight  of  her  speechless  child,  and 
frantic  at  the  thought  of  meeting  her  husband  with 
the  hated  German  stigma  upon  her  body,  Louise 
reaches  a  nervous  condition  which  forces  the  physician 
to  intervene  between  her  and  her  harsh  destiny.  But 
Cheri,  in  whose  mind  there  lingers  no  memory  of  that 
fateful  night  when  everything  became  dark  as  she 
lay  helpless  in  the  arms  of  the  enemy,  is  imbued  with 
a  virginal  passion  for  motherhood  which  takes  no  heed 
of  the  fact  that  her  child  was  conceived  in  violence, 
and  bears  the  features  of  the  hated  foe.  It  is  only 
when  the  people  of  the  village  see  her  with  her  babe 


216  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

in  her  arms,  and  she  is  subjected  to  public  taunt  and 
insult,  that  she  realizes  that  there  is  no  hope  for  a 
child  bom  so  far  outside  the  pale,  and  detennines 
to  kill  it  and  herself.  At  this  tragic  instant  comes 
the  climax  of  the  story,  the  dramatic  value  of  which 
is  only  equalled  by  its  psychological  interest. 

It  is  mid.night  when  Cheri  reaches  her  decision  as 
to  the  only  course  open  to  her  tortured  heart,  and 
throwing  a  veil  over  her  head,  opens  the  door  to  leave 
the  room  wherein  she  has  endured  so  much  of  agony. 
Thus  veiled,  with  her  child  at  her  breast,  and  the 
crescent  moon  shining  through  the  open  window  be- 
hind her,  she  bursts  upon  the  startled  gaze  of  Mireille, 
a  celestial  vision  in  place  of  the  horrible  scene  which 
the  child  has  expected  to  see  reenacted  before  her  eyes, 
just  as  it  was  seared  into  her  memory  that  night  a 
year  ago. 

Trembling  at  the  miracle,  Mireille  seeks  with  all  her 
will  to  utter  the  proper  greeting,  and  after  a  space 
of  interminable  despair  at  her  helplessness,  the  words 
come  out  at  last, — ' '  Ave  Maria !  Ave  Maria ! "  So 
Mireille 's  mind  is  healed  through  the  unhappy  mother 
and  her  despised  child. 

All  through  the  invaded  territory  of  France 
and  Belgium,  these  offspring  of  violence  have 
entered  upon  a  darkened  life.  And  not  only 
are  their  mothers  compelled  to  bear  the  burden 
of  this  forced  maternity;  on  the  child,  too,  the 
sorrow  falls.    For  even  though  an  awakened 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  217 

society  is  removing  the  stigma  of  shame  from 
these  children,  born  outside  the  marriage  bond, 
it  is  impossible  to  estimate  the  warping  of  the 
psychic  and  social  life  of  a  child  reared,  as 
these  girls  have  sworn  to  rear  their  offspring, 
in  hatred  of  their  father  and  his  race. 

Scarcely  less  degrading  in  its  effect  was 
the  war  bride  movement  which  swept  over  the 
European  nations  at  the  beginning  of  the  war. 

''Efforts  were  made  in  various  nations  (Ger- 
many, Great  Britain,  Austria,  Turkey),"  says 
David  Starr  Jordan,  "to  guard  against  a  fall- 
ing birth  rate  by  offering  special  inducements 
to  marriage  before  leaving  for  the  front.  ...  I 
am  told  that  in  Berlin,  in  early  August,  1914, 
more  than  50,000  of  such  marriages  were  cele- 
brated. A  similar  kind  of  war  mating  took 
place  in  many  other  military  centers."  {8:  p. 
123.) 

In  the  one-act  play  entitled  "War  Brides," 
Marion  Craig  Wentworth  has  presented  a  keen 
analysis  of  the  varied  reactions  of  adolescent 
girls  to  the  governmental  command  encourag- 
ing marriages  for  repopulation  purposes.  {16.) 


218  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

The  action  centers  around  a  young  wife  whose  hus- 
band has  been  torn  from  her  side  at  the  beginning  of 
the  war,  leaving  her  to  bear  their  child  in  loneliness, 
amid  the  horrors  of  a  fighting  nation.  H^lf  crazed 
with  grief,  she  opposes  her  feeble  will  to  the  man- 
date of  the  state  and  the  rising  tide  of  public  senti- 
ment which  is  lauding  the  splendid  patriotism  of  these 
brides  of  a  single  night.  Her  seditious  speeches  bring 
the  captain  with  orders  for  her  arrest,  but  even  as  he 
arrives  comes  the  news  of  her  husband's  death,  and 
with  the  words,  "Tell  your  emperor  I  will  not  bear 
my  child  to  aid  his  cruel  wars,"  the  tortured  girl 
shoots  herself. 

There  are  lines  in  the  play  which  show  very 
clearly  the  psychic  forces  back  of  the  war  bride 
demonstration.  The  influence  of  the  mind  of 
the  crowd  is  clearly  shown  in  the  picture  of 
Minna,  who  is  happy  in  the  possession  of  her 
iron  wedding  ring  and  in  the  cheering  of  the 
crowd ;  content  to  see  her  husband  march  away 
after  the  first  passionate  embrace  because  she 
is  sustained  by  the  thought  that  she  is  one  of 
those  patriotic  heroines  whose  names  will  go 
down  in  history;  in  short,  she  is  living  up  to  the 
ideal  of  subordination  to  the  state  cleverly  in- 
stilled into  the  people  in  the  moment  of  their 
emotional  crisis,  and  is  happy  in  the  feeling  of 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  219 

social  approval  which  is  hers  as  a  result  of 
her  marriage. 

Mingled  with  this  yielding  up  of  the  power 
of  decision  to  the  mob  mind  is  the  powerful  at- 
traction which  now,  even  as  in  other  days,  the 
habiliments  of  the  warrior  possess.  For  just 
as  the  war-paint  of  the  savage  made  him  a 
thing  of  beauty  to  the  cave  woman  who  saw  in 
this  evidence  of  his  manliness  a  source  of  pro- 
tection for  herself  and  her  children,  and  just 
as  the  mediaeval  beauty  gave  her  hand  to  the 
knight  who  bore  her  colors  through  the  fiercest 
tourneys,  so,  from  sheer  force  of  age-old  an- 
cestral habit,  the  twentieth  century  girl  turns 
eagerly  to  the  man  in  khaki,  enchanted  at  the 
prospect  of  once  more  having  a  soldier-hus- 
band. Thus,  in  reply  to  the  accusation,  ''You 
married  that  loafer!"  Minna  replies,  ''But  he 
may  be  a  hero,  now ;  he  is  a  soldier, ' '  as  though 
the  mere  donning  of  the  uniform  were  the  long 
sought  formula  of  the  alchemists,  which  would 
change  its  wearer's  nature  from  dross  to  shin- 
ing gold. 

The  increase  of  illegitimate  births  in  war 
time  is  due  in  part  to  the  operation  of  similar 


220  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

psychic  motives.  Allied  to  the  hero  worship, 
to  the  love  of  manly  power,  which  attracts 
woman  to  the  fighting  male,  however,  is  a  vast 
emotional  tension  which  tends  to  break  through 
conventionalities  and  outer  restraints.  The 
girl  knows  her  lover  will  soon  be  facing  danger 
and  death,  and  all  else  pales  into  insignificance 
beside  this  agonizing  realization.  Moreover, 
the  war  mood,  which  Dr.  Partridge  describes, 
with  its  summation  of  the  emotional  life,  is  re- 
flected in  the  civil  population,  and  particularly 
in  those  who  have  intimate  connections  with 
the  warring  units. 

On  the  one  hand,  this  makes  for  the  morale 
of  the  people  who  remain  at  home,  so  that  they 
stand  solidly  behind  their  army,  and  will  make 
every  sacrifice  in  their  power  to  support  the 
soldiers  they  have  sent  to  the  front.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  nervous  tension  tends  to  break 
over  into  other  channels,  as  is  evidenced  by  wild 
rumors  set  afloat  in  war  time,  and  by  various 
other  abnormal  occurrences.  In  the  young  girl, 
it  is  not  strange  that  this  summated  emotion 
of  the  group  tends  to  reinforce  the  love-life,  so 
that  she  feels  no  other  desire  than  the  supreme 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  221 

one  to  express  her  whole  affection  now,  before 
it  becomes  too  late.  Beside  this  grand  emo- 
tion, all  other  motives  pale  into  insignificance, 
and  with  a  fine  disregard  of  consequences,  and 
no  thought  of  the  personal  suffering  which  her 
rashness  may  entail,  she  casts  aside  all  thought 
of  self,  and  gives  herself  wholly  to  the  man 
she  worships  in  proportion  as  she  fears  his 
loss. 

The  American  girl  showed  this  preference 
for  the  soldier  as  clearly  as  her  European  sis- 
ter. All  her  conventions  were  thrown  aside, 
and  the  soldier  was  greeted  everywhere  as 
though  his  uniform  were  a  guarantee  of  his 
social  and  moral  standing.  More  than  one 
wedding  was  hastened  by  the  bridegroom's  en- 
trance into  the  service,  and  many  an  engage- 
ment and  marriage  was  entered  into  after  the 
briefest  acquaintance.  The  tendency  did  not 
assume  the  proportions  that  it  did  overseas, 
for  it  lacked  the  stamp  of  government  sanction 
and  the  incentive  of  public  approval.  But  the 
American  girl,  as  shown  by  data  loaned  me  by 
Dr.  Iva  L.  Peters,*  has  long  worshipped  the 

*  See  preface. 


222  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

athlete,  the  man  of  mental  alertness  and  phys- 
ical vigor,  and  blinded  by  the  romantic  glamour 
that  surrounded  the  soldier  in  the  tension  of  the 
war  atmosphere,  she  saw  her  ideal  suddenly 
come  to  life  in  him.  So  she  rushed  into  a  hectic 
love  affair,  borne  on  by  the  excitement  and  en- 
thusiasm which  permeated  the  group  mind. 

What  will  be  the  ultimate  result  of  these 
hasty  unions?  The  young  bride,  scarce  awak- 
ened to  the  full  maturity  of  womanhood  by  her 
brief  marital  life,  will  find  the  problem  of  ad- 
justment to  a  husband  little  known  at  first,  and 
still  more  strange  since  the  experiences  of  war 
have  changed  and  matured  him,  no  light  task. 
Again,  as  Ellen  Key  {9;  10)  and  Artzibashef 
{!)  have  suggested,  when  war  returns  a 
wounded  mate  to  the  young  wife,  robbed  of  his 
physical  vitality,  what  is  to  prevent  her  trans- 
ference of  her  sexual  emotions  to  some  able- 
bodied  man?  Truly  the  outlook  for  happiness 
and  for  wifely  constancy  in  these  war  mar- 
riages is  a  sad  one ! 

The  impulse  to  throw  aside  the  restraints  of 
conventional  monogamy  is  everjrwhere  encour- 
aged and  upheld  by  other  conditions  which  have 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  223 

been  brought  about  by  the  war.  Appalled  by 
the  frightful  loss  of  its  young  men,  and  fear- 
ful for  the  national  future,  the  governments  of 
the  warring  countries  have  determined  to  use 
every  means  in  their  power  to  counteract  the 
falling  birth  rate  which  would  be  the  natural 
result  of  this  state  of  affairs.  Schreiner  (14) 
tells  us  that  the  stain  of  illegitimacy  has  been 
wiped  out  by  the  legal  action  of  Germany,  while 
from  authentic  sources  comes  the  statement 
that  imperial  command  made  it  a  duty  for  the 
soldiers  of  that  country  to  ensure  the  repopu- 
lation  of  specific  districts  allotted  to  their  care. 

Mrs.  Deland  (4)  says:  ''If  Germany  officially 
approves  the  Torgas  pamphlet  on  the  plurality 
of  wives — secondary  marriages — France  unoffi- 
cially— but  without  public  or  legal  disapproval 
— may  read  Mere  Sans  Epouse — a  study  of  ex- 
isting conditions  written  with  dignity  and 
solemnity. ' ' 

The  book  to  which  Mrs.  Deland  refers  advo- 
cates, as  is  indicated  by  the  title,  motherhood 
outside  of  marriage  as  a  more  noble  and  suit- 
able solution  of  the  problem  France  is  facing 
than  the  institution  of  Polygamy.    {15.) 


224  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

The  same  lowering  of  sexual  restraints  has, 
to  be  sure,  followed  every  great  war  of  his- 
tory, but  never  before  has  it  occurred  on  so 
large  a  scale,  or  been  so  publicly  condoned  and 
even  encouraged.  Everywhere,  the  doctrine  is 
being  spread  broadcast  that  this  war  is  to  mark 
a  radical  change  in  the  world's  system  of  sexual 
morality.  The  Eugenists  are  raising  their 
voices  as  never  before,  and  are  reiterating  that 
it  is  the  quality  of  the  offspring,  not  the  nature 
of  its  conception,  that  is  the  all-important  thing. 
The  logical  outcome  of  this  assumption  is  polyg- 
amy or  unmarried  motherhood,  since  the  war 
has  so  drained  the  male  stock  of  Europe  that 
the  maintenance  of  monogamy  is  incompatible 
with  eugenic  standards. 

In  America,  where  there  is  less  necessity  for 
the  exploitation  of  such  readjustments,  since 
conditions  have  been  less  radically  changed^ 
these  ideas  are,  nevertheless,  having  their  un- 
doubted influence  on  the  public  mind.  For 
America  is  reading  the  books  which  have  been 
written  in  defence  of  these  measures  for  re- 
population  which  rule  out  the  liigher  concep- 
tions of  love  between  the  sexes,  and  she  knows 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  225 

that  the  nations  with  whom  she  has  fought 
shoulder  to  shoulder,  and  for  whom  she  has 
come  to  have  the  deepest  regard,  are  adopting 
them,  at  least  for  the  present.  Moreover,  the 
3,000,000  men  whom  she  sent  to  France  have 
come  back  with  a  viewpoint  on  these  matters 
colored  by  the  attitudes  they  have  absorbed  and 
the  experiences  they  have  undergone.  And  so, 
while  she  will  not  openly  approve  departures 
from  the  conventional  moral  code,  America  will, 
nevertheless,  find  an  increasing  number  of  her 
young  people  listening  to  these  new  doctrines 
of  sexual  liberty,  and  applying  them  to  the 
problems  of  their  own  existence. 

Unfortunately,  it  is  doubtful  if  the  adoption 
of  these  new  standards  would  better  the  exist- 
ent situation  in  any  way.  The  mental  anguish 
which  any  union  other  than  a  monogamous  one 
must  create  in  the  woman's  soul  is  infinite  and 
inevitable;  while  the  union  which  exists  out- 
side public  sanction  starts  with  a  great  handi- 
cap which  must  almost  surely  wreck  its  felicity. 
For  upon  the  girl,  in  both  instances,  even  under 
the  broadening  standards  of  the  present  day, 
falls  the  greater  share  of  social  disapproval, 


226  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

and  the  gregarious  instinct  is  too  deeply  im- 
planted within  the  human  organism  to  endure 
suppression  without  evil  effects.  If  a  secret 
love  avoids  this  social  condemnation  it  has  little 
more  chance  of  survival,  for  the  constant  ele- 
ment of  fear,  and  the  impossibility  of  the  natu- 
ral fruit  of  marriage  in  children,  will  combine 
to  make  such  a  love  die  of  its  own  stagnant 
and  uncreative  nature.  Only  in  rare  instances, 
such  as  occur  once  in  a  single  age,  can  an  un- 
sanctioned and  childless  love  become  so  produc- 
tive in  the  artistic  or  intellectual  realm  that  it 
more  than  compensates  the  possessors  for  all 
the  sacrifices  and  anguish  which  it  involves. 

Even  were  these  temporary  unions  uncriti- 
cized  by  the  general  public,  it  is  doubtful 
whether  the  children  resulting  from  them  would 
reach  the  final  goal  of  perfection  optimistically 
expected  by  the  enthusiasts  who  claim  that 
these  are  the  superior  offspring,  the  eugenic 
stock.  For  this  thought  makes  the  old  Platonic 
mistake  of  underestimating  the  value  of  the 
family  situation  in  the  life  of  the  child,  and  for- 
gets how  necessary  for  the  production  of  a  nor- 
mal personality  is  the  background  of  a  happy 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  227 

home  and  the  possession  of  two  parents  by 
whom  to  shape  the  social  reactions. 

We  are  forced  to  the  conclusion,  therefore, 
that  in  so  far  as  the  war  has  affected  the  sexual 
relationships  of  the  adolescent  girl,  it  has 
worked  incalculable  injury  in  that  it  has  de- 
flected her  attention  from  the  new  and  high 
ideal  of  love  which  she  had  been  slowly  and 
painfully  evolving,  and  set  up  false  prophets 
for  her  guidance..  But  in  a  different  sense,  it 
has  opened  the  way  for  a  realization  of  her  ulti- 
mate destinies  in  a  way  that  centuries  of  peace 
could  not  have  done.  And  the  manner  in  which 
it  has  done  this  has  been  two-fold :  first,  it  has 
led  her  out  into  the  field  of  political  affairs,  and 
second,  it  has  made  man  realize  that  perhaps, 
after  all,  his  guidance  of  world  affairs  might 
not  be  made  less  steady  by  the  touch  of  a  wo- 
man's hand  upon  the  rudder. 

It  is  a  happy  coincidence  that  just  when  the 
fortunes  of  war  have  brought  woman  into  the 
political  life  of  the  world,  there  should  at  the 
same  time  be  formulated  an  expression  of  the 
crying  need  for  her  presence  in  the  ordering  of 
world  affairs.    Now,  in  1919,  the  women  of 


228  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

Eussia  and  Germany  have  full  rights  of  citi- 
zenship with  the  men,  while  in  England  they 
are  given  the  franchise  after  they  have  attained 
the  age  of  thirty  years.  In  our  own  country, 
the  states  are  ratifying  the  constitutional 
amendment  for  equal  suffrage.  In  France,  to 
be  sure,  the  war  has  not  brought  franchise  priv- 
ileges to  the  toiling  and  enduring  women  who 
have  held  the  internal  life  of  the  nation  intact 
while  the  husbands,  sons  and  brothers  kept  the 
enemy  from  overrunning  the  land,  but  even 
there  it  has  awakened  the  feminine  soul  to  the 
fact  that  she  must  have  a  direct  voice  in  the 
national  life. 

As  early  as  1915,  Schoonmaker  had  dimly 
sensed  the  need  of  woman's  presence  in  the 
councils  of  those  who  possessed  an  active  voice 
in  the  destinies  of  society.    (13.) 

The  argument  that  the  participation  of  woman  in 
the  affairs  of  society  would  work  injury  has  received 
its  death  blow.  What  was  it  in  woman  that  we  feared 
— the  softening  of  society?  On  this  score  the  war 
has  indeed  reassured  us.  Indeed,  woman  may  well  in- 
quire why  she  should  leave  her  home  and  come  into 
a  world  that  has  no  appreciation  of  her  purity  and 
virgin  emotion.    Will  it  ever  he  possible  for  woman 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  229 

again  to  bring  forth  a  child  and  question  not  if  her 
pains  were  worth  while?  Never  since  the  beginning 
of  time  has  life's  appalling  contradiction  so  torn  the 
heart  of  woman  as  to-day.  Never  again  can  woman 
remain  calmJy  at  home,  in  the  thought  that  the  world 's 
affairs  are  outside  her  sphere.  For  to-day  the  affairs 
of  the  world  are  wrecking  the  homes  of  the  earth,  and 
woman  realizes  that  if  she  would  keep  her  home  in- 
violate, she  must  bear  her  share  of  the  affairs  of  the 
body  politic. 

The  sudden  murder-lust  which  has  sprung  up  in 
the  soul  of  man  is  but  a  continuation  of  the  fierce 
economic  competition,  with  capital  mercilessly  crush- 
ing labor  to  the  earth.  In  both  cases,  the  fundamental 
trouble  with  society  is  the  separation  of  power  and 
love  in  the  body  politic,  which  is  due  to  giving  over 
social  control  to  power-desiring  man,  and  denying  ex- 
pression to  the  love-nature  of  woman  in  the  affairs  of 
the  world.  Humanity  is  crying  up  to  the  skies  for 
love,  while  the  heart  of  woman  is  yearning  to  the 
world. 

In  the  final  analysis,  this  war  is  a  demonstration  by 
nature  of  the  utter  futility  of  the  separation  of  love 
and  power  in  the  building  of  the  world.  The  problem 
is,  what  will  be  the  lot  of  the  future  ?  Woman  is  being 
forced  into  public  industries  and  affairs  by  the  events 
of  the  war  as  never  before.  Will  she  remain  there, 
or  will  she  willingly  surrender  her  enlarged  field  of 
activity  to  her  partner  on  his  return  from  the  field  of 
battle?  Perhaps  we  can  find  some  prophecy  in  his- 
tory which  will  throw  light  on  this  subject.     After 


230  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

the  crusades,  man  did  not  settle  back  into  his  old 
narrow  life  circumscribed  by  the  circle  drawn  by 
churchly  dogma;  on  the  contrary,  his  spirit,  thrilled 
by  his  adventure,  blossomed  out  in  the  Eenaissance. 

Even  had  not  the  spirit  of  woman  been  thus  kindled, 
the  tremendous  slaughter  of  men  in  Europe  will  ne- 
cessitate her  remaining  in  industry  to  a  very  great 
extent.  What  will  she  do  with  this  new  opportunity  ? 
Will  she  be  content  with  her  new  freedom,  and  settle 
down  to  simple  mastery  of  her  new  tools?  Or  will 
she  realize  that  the  end  is  not  yet?  Will  she  attain 
the  higher  vision,  and  see  that  her  real  service  lies 
not  so  much  in  labor  as  in  those  higher  spheres  of 
control?  Will  she  understand  that  to  give  peace  and 
justice  to  the  stricken  world,  love  must  sit  beside 
power  willing  and  able  to  intervene  whenever  neces- 
sary ?  Or  in  her  inevitable  struggle  to  reach  this  high 
place,  will  she  forget  her  great  cosmic  mission,  and 
hardened  by  the  conflict  become  a  second  male,  simply 
another  unit  of  power?  Will  the  homemaker  of  the 
centuries  lose  her  vision,  and  forget  that  the  divine 
purpose  of  her  coming  is  to  make  of  the  world  a  home  1 

In  a  still  broader  way,  Benjamin  Kidd,  in 
his  book  entitled  Science  and  Power,  putlines 
the  social  need  for  woman.  (11.) 

Man  is  a  fighting  pagan,  a  destructive  force  in  the 
world.  Woman,  on  the  other  hand,  through  centuries 
of  subordination  of  self  and  present  interests  to  those 
of  the  race  and  of  the  future,  is  the  ultimate  guide 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  231 

to  whom  we  must  turn  in  our  efforts  at  social  recon- 
struction. Her  psychic  power  has  remained  un- 
utilized in  the  field  of  civic  and  public  life,  but  hers 
is  the  needed  trait, — altruism  and  sacrifice  of  self  for 
the  group  welfare.  Where  the  fighting  male  has  set 
up  ruthless  efficiency,  whether  in  economic  competi- 
tion or  in  war,  she  will  look  to  the  good  of  the  race, 
and  hold  up  forbearance  and  the  ideal  of  the  general 
welfare  and  happiness. 

"The  driving  principle  in  woman's  nature  at  all 
its  highest  levels  has  been  by  pure  physiological  ne- 
cessity the  subjugation  of  the  present,  with  all  its 
imperious  demands  to  a  meaning  beyond  herself  and 
beyond  all  interests  visible  in  the  present.  By  the 
necessities  of  evolution  .  .  .  woman  has  ever  been 
the  creature  of  the  long-range  emotions  through  which 
the  instant  needs  of  the  present  are  subordinated  to 
the  meaning  implicit  in  the  long  series  of  cause  and 
effect  through  which  maximum  power  expresses  itself 
in  the  social  integration. ' '    (P.  201.) 

The  mind  of  man  has  created  for  the  world  an  ideal 
social  self  as  his  model  based  on  the  principle  of  force 
and  selfishness.  Man  always  strives  to  attain  this  ideal 
as  it  is  set  up  for  him  in  literature,  and  in  various 
other  expressions,  and  thus  it  becomes  necessary  for 
woman  to  create  the  social  ideal  of  the  future,  to 
endow  it  with  her  characteristics  of  self-sacrifice  and 
service  in  following  the  emotion  of  the  ideal,  that 
man's  forcefulness  may  also  be  turned  to  this  chan- 
nel, and  have  at  last  a  worthy  goal.  The  peoples  who 
seek  their  guiding  principles  in  this  psychic  trait  of 


232  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

the  mind  of  woman  will  be  the  winning  people  of  the 
world  of  the  future. 

Madeline  Doty  (6)  has  given  us  a  concrete 
report  of  how  woman  has  risen  to  the  ideal 
which  these  two  men  have  set  up  for  her  in  the 
short  time  thus  far  elapsed. 

The  horrors  of  the  Bolsheviki  would  be  tenfold  ex- 
cept for  the  women  of  Russia,  who  have  fought,  and 
worked,  and  gone  into  exile  in  the  long  struggle  to 
bring  about  the  revolution,  and  are  now  exerting  all 
their  powers  to  restrain  the  brute  force  of  the  men, 
and  to  inculcate  the  quality  of  mercy  into  their  deal- 
ings. In  Sweden  and  Germany  the  Feminist  move- 
ment has  centered  around  the  child,  and  the  protec- 
tion of  motherhood.  The  French  women  have  been 
the  bulwark  behind  the  war;  it  has  been  their  spirit, 
their  loyalty,  which  has  enabled  the  men  to  go  to 
the  front  secure  in  the  knowledge  that  the  essential 
industries  would  be  carried  on  in  their  absence.  In 
England,  it  is  the  eugenic  needs  which  are  woman's 
first  concern,  and  the  problems  of  industry  that  affect 
the  welfare  of  the  workers  and  of  the  next  generation. 

The  woman  of  the  present  generation  has 
accomplished  much.  Slie  has  made  man  realize 
that  he  has  need  of  her  in  his  great  business  of 
managing  the  world,  and  she  has  not  failed  to 
attack  the  political  problems  which  lie  within 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  233 

her  sphere.  But  the  woman  of  to-morrow  is 
called  to  yet  higher  tasks,  for  to  her  is  given 
the  mission- of  shaping  the  social  ideals  and 
aspirations  into  the  service  of  love,  as  well  as 
of  power.  ''The  hope  of  the  future  lies  in  the 
release  of  the  woman  spirit,  so  that  henceforth 
masculinism  and  feminism  can  combine  to  make 
one  great  spirit  of  humanism." 

"Whether  woman  can  accomplish  this  mighty 
miracle  depends  in  large  measure  upon  the 
manner  in  which  she  emerges  from  the  adoles- 
cent crisis,  for  if  she  is  to  be  successful  in 
making  the  love  ideal  an  integral  part  of  the 
world  mind,  she  must  first  be  certain  of  its 
supremacy  in  her  own  nature.  So,  not  only 
for  the  sake  of  her  own  personal  happiness,  but 
for  the  welfare  of  all  humanity,  the  girl  of  to- 
day must  achieve  the  subordination  of  the  ego- 
istic sentiments  to  the  racial  and  altruistic  emo- 
tions which  are  the  truly  feminine  psychic 
traits.  And  she  must  also  achieve  the  ability 
to  sublimate  these  energies  and  project  them 
into  the  life  of  humanity,  whether  she  accom- 
plish this  purpose  by  means  of  intellectual  and 
social  work  alone,  or  through  bringing  man  to 


234  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

understand  and  accept  the  new  ideal  of  love, 
with  its  all-embracing  character,  which  is  the 
next  step  in  the  psychic  evolution  of  mankind. 
The  franchise  is,  however,  only  one  small 
means  to  this  great  end.  Not  only  must  woman 
use  her  new  political  power  to  set  up  the  love 
ideal  in  the  hearts  of  mankind,  she  must  also 
give  to  her  social  philosophy  an  expression  in 
literature  and  art.  The  women  of  Sweden  have 
already  taken  the  first  steps  in  this  direction; 
it  remains  for  the  talented  women  of  other  na- 
tions to  break  away  from  slavish  imitation  of 
masculine  forms  of  expression,  and  to  become 
truly  creative  as  th  .y  release  their  own  per- 
sonalities and  embody  their  own  aspirations. 
The  social  philosophy  of  Ellen  Key,  which  is 
the  projection  of  the  mother  spirit  into  the  life 
of  the  whole  race,  and  the  literary  genius  of 
Selma  Lagerlof,  which  weaves  the  same  motif 
into  a  more  imaginative  form,  are  the  begin- 
nings of  the  attempt  to  make  articulate  the 
very  life  and  soul  of  womanhood.  It  is  because 
these  women  have  created  their  work  from 
within  their  own  inner  life,  and  have  not 
wrought  dully  after  man-made  patterns,  that 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  235 

they  are  recognized  among  the  great  ones  of  the 
age.  Here,  too,  it  is  in  the  giving  of  herself 
over  to  the  organic  impulses  of  the  race,  and 
in  finding  a  sublimated  expression  of  them,  that 
woman  reaches  the  highest  realization  of  her 
own  individuality. 

But  the  final  expression  of  the  woman  spirit 
will  be  the  new  religious  conception  which  it  is 
fitting  that  she  should  give  to  the  world.  For 
to  woman  is  entrusted  the  first  religious  in- 
struction of  the  child,  so  that  it  is  essential  that 
she  should  conceive  and  pass  on  to  the  child- 
hood of  the  race  a  new  interpretation  of  Chris- 
tianity, which  shall  ind€;\i)d  be  a  religion  of 
brotherly  love.  Because  she  has  ever  been  less 
bound  by  creed  and  dogma  than  man ;  because  it 
has  been  the  spirit  and  not  the  letter  that  has 
appealed  to  her  in  all  her  worship ;  because  with 
her  religion  has  always  been  a  thing  of  the 
emotions,  it  should  be  easy  for  her  to  under- 
stand the  new  conception  of  Christianity  which 
would  sweep  away  all  differences  of  sects,  and 
unite  mankind  in  one  great  universal  idealism. 

The  adolescent  girl,  with  her  innate  need  of 
religious  emotion  as  a  sublimation  of  her  erotic 


236  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

life,  with  lier  native  tendency  to  conversion  and 
consecration  to  some  high  and  mystical  ideal, 
is  the  one  to  whom,  in  all  its  inspiring  scope 
and  breadth  of  vision,  this  new  religion  should 
be  given,  first  of  all.  Every  sign  points  to  her 
acceptation  of  this  fuller  and  richer  version  of 
Christianity,  for  she  is  newly  thrilled  with  the 
love  of  her  fellow-beings,  and  keenly  responsive 
to  the  beauties  of  the  earth  and  to  the  forces  of 
nature.  Hence  the  great  cosmic  interpretation, 
which  sees  the  universe  as  one  organic  whole, 
and  man  as  an  integral  part  of  all  existence, 
satisfies  her  emotional  cravings  at  the  same 
time  that  it  answers  the  intellectual  doubts  of 
churchly  dogma  which  have  begun  to  trouble 
her  mind. 

In  this  far-reaching  vision,  the  evolutionary 
doctrine,  which  seemed  to  narrow  minds  incom- 
patible with  the  worship  of  Jesus,  in  reality 
makes  him  and  his  teachings  vital  as  it  shows 
the  rationality  of  the  doctrine  of  brotherhood 
which  he  set  forth. 

"  'Our  Father'  is  merely  an  expression  of 
my  filial  relation  to  the  great  one  and  all  from 
which  my  own  being  was  derived  through  the 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  237 

long  processes  of  evolution.  I  am  a  son  of  the 
sky  and  the  nebula?;  thence  I  came  and  into 
them  I  shall  be  resolved.  .  .  .  This  conception 
makes  us  realize  that  we  are  relatives  not  only 
of  plant  and  animal  life,  but  of  rocks,  soil,  sea, 
air ;  brothers  of  every  element ;  that  all  are  our 
kin,  for  we  have  the  same  parent, — the  primor- 
dial force  out  of  which  the  world  arose."  {Ed. 
Prob.  p.  139-140.) 

So  says  G.  Stanley  Hall,  and  in  the  light  of 
this  statement  it  becomes  apparent  that  Jesus 
was  not  simply  stating  an  abstract  ethical  prin- 
ciple, but  was  expressing  an  inherent  emotional 
attitude  to  mankind  founded  in  this  organic 
continuity  of  the  universe  and  of  human  life, 
which  makes  men  our  brothers  in  a  deeper  sense 
than  any  system  of  moral  injunctions  imposed 
from  without.  And  as  we  trace  the  evolution 
of  life  upon  the  earth  from  the  first  lowly  pro- 
toplasmic unit  to  the  complex  and  highly  or- 
ganized human  species,  we  cannot  but  feel  that 
this  slowly  evolved  being  is  more  worthy  of  our 
love  than  any  creature  molded  from  dull  clay, 
and  infused  with  the  breath  of  life  in  a  single 


288  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

instant,  as  a  literal  interpretation  of  the  biblical 
story  of  creation  implies. 

In  this  evolutionary  doctrine,  which  shows 
man  as  the  final  product  of  geons  of  infinitely 
slow  development,  there  is  implicit  a  great  and 
glorious  hope  for  the  future  which  far  outshines 
any  anticipation  of  individual  immortality.  It 
is  an  expectation  based  on  certainties,  rather 
than  on  vague  wishes  and  the  blind  faith  that 
they  will  come  true ;  because  we  know  that  the 
great  energy  of  life, — the  Bergsonian  elan  vital, 
— will  push  the  race  onward,  slowly  and  irre- 
sistibly, long  after  our  little  day,  even  as  it  did 
in  all  the  ages  that  were  a  preparation  for  our 
coming.  Thus,  in  so  far  as  we  can  consciously 
make  our  life  count  ever  so  little  in  the  realiza- 
tion of  this  change,  whether  by  the  production 
of  better  offspring,  or  by  intellectual  or  social 
work  which  shall  make  the  way  swifter  for 
those  who  are  to  come,  we  feel  ourselves  one 
with  this  great  cosmic  purpose,  and  are  experi- 
encing as  soul-satisfying  an  emotion  as  did  tb 
mediaeval  mystic  in  his  ascetic  contemplation 
and  union  with  God. 

It  becomes  evident,  that  the  sonship  of  Jesua 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  239 

was  not  a  sonship  to  the  Deity  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, but  to  the  whole  life  of  the  stirp  that  had 
gone  before,  and  in  so  far  as  he  felt  himself  a 
link  in  the  illimitable  series  of  the  future,  and 
thus  a  part  of  the  great  cosmic  forces,  he  was 
inspired  with  a  sense  of  his  own  divinity.  It 
was  not  necessary  that  he  should  know  the  doc- 
trine of  evolution,  for  his  conviction  was  a  more 
primeval  one,  instinctive  and  emotional,  but  as 
unerringly  true  as  the  rationalized  belief  of 
the  modern  scientist.  And  so,  if  we  would 
truly  follow  the  spirit  of  his  teachings,  we  must 
set  up  for  ourselves  a  new  God, — the  God 
Humanity,  conceived  as  an  organic  whole,  from 
the  earliest  beginnings  of  life  through  the  pres- 
ent, and  into  the  vast  stretches  of  the  future. 

"If  it  were  desired  to  found  a  religion  which 
is,  so  to  speak,  unchangeable  in  its  eternal  youth 
and  yet  capable  of  modification  so  as  to  meet 
the  needs  of  mankind,  then  it  must  be  based  on 
something  unchangeable  and  yet  capable  of 
ihange.  ..."  Thus  Nicolai,  as  he  charges  that 
all  religions  have  failed,  else  man  would  not 
stiU  be  killing  man.  ''Humanity,"  he  con- 
tinues, *'is  sufficiently  absolute  and  mutable  for 


240  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

our  purposes.  Moreover,  it  also  rises  above 
man  and  is  yet  human.  Humanity  has  evolved 
and  is  evolving  still  further,  in  a  course  and 
direction  which  may  be  changing,  but  has  been 
fixed  once  for  all.  We  were  animals,  and  we 
became  human  beings,  and  the  human  being  of 
to-morrow  is  something  different  from  the  hu- 
man being  of  to-day.  .  .  .  The  natural  result 
of  this  ever-changing  human  reality,  which  in 
course  of  time  becomes  ever  more  and  more 
perfect,  is  that  the  future  will  seem  to  us  an 
ever  higher  reality,  in  which  we  can  believe, 
on  which  we  can  legitimately  set  our  affections, 
and  to  which  we  must  pin  our  hopes. 

"The  three  cardinal  virtues  of  Christianity 
are  in  truth  the  main  supports  of  religion ;  but 
we  must  not  believe  in  anything  unreal,  nor  set 
our  affections  on  anything  past,  or  our  hopes 
on  any  mere  visions.  ...  To  be  humane  sim- 
ply means  that  we  have  comprehended  the  his- 
tory of  the  evolution  of  mankind ;  that  we  know 
whence  we  come;  that  we  have  an  inkling  of 
whither  we  are  going;  and  that  we  accordingly 
try  to  conform  to  the  general  scheme  of  nature, 
which  for  us  means  the  new  progress  of  human 


THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL  241 

evolution.  We  believe  in  this  progress  of  evo- 
lution; we  love  mankind,  and  we  hope  for  fur- 
ther progress."  (13:  pp.  549-552.) 

It  was  this  religion  of  humanity  which  Christ 
felt,  and  it  is  for  us  to  realize  that  it  is  the  only- 
true  interpretation  of  his  spirit.  And  it  is 
this  religious  conception  alone  which  can  satisfy 
the  needs  of  the  adolescent  girl,  for  it  permits 
her  to  worship  the  Christ-hero,  at  the  same 
time  that  it  fulfills  her  intellectual  and  emo- 
tional demands.  And  as  she  becomes  mother 
and  teacher,  it  is  this  view  which  she  must  pass 
on  to  the  generations  to  come,  so  that  man  may 
transmute  his  fighting  impulses  into  war  with 
the  forces  of  nature,  in  order  to  bring  them 
still  further  under  his  control  for  the  benefit  of 
the  race,  and  so  that  woman,  herself,  may  find 
in  this  all-embracing  love  the  supreme  expres- 
sion of  her  deepest  nature.  '^ 

BIBLIOGRAPHY  FOR  CHAPTER  VII 

1.  Artzibashef,  Michael.  War.     122  pp.  Richards.    Lon- 

don, 1918. 

2.  Beatty,  Bessie.     The  Red  Heart  of  Russia.    480  pp. 

Century  Co.    N.  Y.,  1918. 


242  THE  ADOLESCENT  GIRL 

3.  Chartres,    Annie    Vivanti.      The    Outrage.      261    pp. 

Knopf.    N.  Y.,  1918. 

4.  Deland,  Margaret.     Beads:   War-time  Reflections  in 

Paris.    Pp.  169-177.    Harper's.    July,  1918. 

5.  Dorr,  Rheta  Childe.     Inside  the  Russian  Revolution. 

243  pp.     Macmillan.     N.  Y.,  1917. 

6.  Doty,  Madeline  Z.     Behind  the  Battle  Line.     200  pp. 

Macmillan.     N.  Y.,  1918. 

7.  Ellis,  Havelock.     Essays  in  Wartime.    247  pp.     Con- 

stable.    London,  1916. 

8.  Jordan,  David  Starr.    War  and  the  Breed.     265  pp. 

Beacon  Press.     Boston,  1915. 

9.  Key,  Ellen.     War  and  the  Sexes.     837-844  pp.     At- 

lantic Mo.     V.  117. 

10.    .     War,  Peace  and  the  Future.     271  pp. 

Putnam.     N.  Y.,  1916. 

11.  Kidd,   Benjamin.     The  Science  of  Power.     306   pp. 

Methuen.     London,  1918. 

12.  Nicolai,  G.  F.     The  Biology  of  War.     553  pp.     Cen- 

tury.   N.  Y.,  1918. 

13.  Sehoonmaker,    Edward    D.      The   World    Storm    and 

Beyond.    249  pp.    Century  Co.    N.  Y.,  1915. 

14.  Schreiner,    Geo,    A.      The    Iron    Ration.      386    pp. 

Harper's.     N.  Y.,  1918. 

15.  Torina,  Martinde.     Mere  Sans  Etre  Epouse.     145  pp. 

Chez  L'Auteur.    Paris,  1917. 

16.  Wentworth,  Marion  Craig.    War  Brides.    P.  527  &  ff. 

Century.    V.  67,  1914-15. 


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